Coming
Home

PD Martin

Also by PD Martin:

Body Count

The Murderers’ Club

Fan Mail

The Killing Hands

Kiss of Death

Coming Home

Copyright © PD Martin 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Cover design © katsiedesign 2010

International acclaim for PD Martin’s books

Body Count

“A taut and terrific debut novel…Can't wait for her next.” Women's Weekly
“PD Martin...ticks all the right boxes.” Sydney Morning Herald
“A great, gripping read.” Woman's Day
“...solid, well-researched debut...the intense first-person narration has enough twists and turns to keep forensics fans turning the pages.” Publishers Weekly
“Martin's debut is truly superb, combining enough procedural details to satisfy CSI junkies with humor, emotion and a generous amount of chills.” Romantic Times

The Murderers’ Club

“Martin provides solid entertainment as she takes a high-concept premise and runs with it. The narrative is fast-moving, the protagonists likable, the police detail and dialogue believable and the serial killers just as evil as they need to be.” Publishers Weekly
“...just as gripping and original as the first...The Murderers' Club is certainly a riveting read.” Herald Sun
“The Murderers' Club is a real page-turner, with a dastardly mix of villains.” The Age

Fan Mail

“gripping read...” Herald Sun
“best book in the series so far...” The Age
“...her control of the threads of the stories is very masterful.” AustCrime
“gripping and realistic thriller.” Good Reading
“...twisted, intriguing and brilliant plot.” Sunday Territorian
“Martin ratchets up the fear and the tension expertly.” Courier Mail
“another winner...” New Weekly

The Killing Hands

“...more twists and turns than a Rubik's cube...” Herald Sun
“...readers who enjoy hard-nosed police drama or CSI-style television shows will find her an engaging character.” Fresh Fiction
“The plot is tight, with surprising twists.” Sunshine Coast Sunday
“With plenty of tension and intrigue and an insight into the world of martial arts The Killing Hands is hard to put down.” Launceston Examiner

Kiss of Death

“...formidable stylist...” The Age

“Sophie's investigation takes us to a darker side of the twilight world. A book to keep your brain in overdrive.” Woman’s Day

“...a clever concoction blending standard crime fiction—there are procedural elements, some forensics... and profiling—with fantasy horror.” The Age

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this interactive ebook. It was an exciting and challenging process for me, but I loved being able to “lift the veil” on the writing process for my readers. So if you voted (you know who you are), thanks for taking part! You can see the outcome of the chapter-by-chapter voting at www.pdmartin.com.au/ebook.

I’d also like to thank and congratulate Virginia Danahay, who won my character name competition. Virginia features in Coming Home as Detective Virginia Danahay. Thanks to everyone else who entered the competition and sorry you’re not featured in this book!

For editorial input, I’d like to thank my US editor, Adam Wilson who created that final level of finesse. However, please note I’ve followed Australian conventions in terms of spelling, punctuation, and so on. Big thanks also go to: Paul McCarthy (who came up with the idea of writing a book that got my readers involved in shaping the plot); Tony Wilkinson for designing the cover; Sandra Mueller (a Sophie fan) for volunteering her services to turn this book into an epub file; and my fans turned proofreaders—Linda Martin (no relation), Virginia Danahay, Simone Harland Winter, and Lisa Mackrill.

For their professional expertise, I’d like to thank forensic pathologist Shelley Robertson for autopsy/medical facts; Ingrid Martin (also for medical facts); and Darren Wolchyn for some GPS facts. All deviations from reality are my mistakes, things I didn’t check, or artistic license.

Finally, I’d like to thank my friends and family for all their support.

About the author

PD Martin lives in Melbourne, Australia, and developed a passion for crime fiction and storytelling at an early age. This interest was reinforced with formal education through a Bachelor of Behavioural Sciences (with majors in psychology and criminology) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Writing (Creative Writing). PD Martin also holds a black sash from the Australian Tiger and Crane Kung Fu School.

Coming Home is the sixth book featuring FBI criminal profiler Sophie Anderson, following on from Body Count, The Murderers’ Club, Fan Mail, The Killing Hands and Kiss of Death—all of which received glowing reviews around the world. Coming Home is the only ebook in the series—the other books are all full novels published in hardback/paperback around the world. To date, the Sophie Anderson series has been published in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Argentina. PD Martin has also contributed to a true-crime anthology titled Meaner than Fiction.

Prior to becoming a full-time author, PD Martin worked as a professional writer for over ten years, writing award-winning copy for brochures, newsletters, websites, training CD-ROMs, flyers, ads, media releases and magazines.

For more information visit www.pdmartin.com.au.

Chapter 1

The shrill echo of a ringing phone pierces my eardrum and pulls me out of a deep sleep. That’d be right—the one time I actually seem to be getting a good night’s sleep.

‘Hello?’ My voice is hoarse.

‘Soph, it’s Mum.’

I instinctively glance at my bedside clock—3am, which makes it 9pm in Melbourne now that they’re on daylight savings. Mum never gets the time zones mixed up, never.

I push myself upright. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘The police just left.’ Her voice is frail. Another never for Mum.

‘Police? Is Dad okay?’

‘Yes.’ A pause, then, ‘Bob, pick up.’

A noisy click sounds down the phone line.

‘Dad, what’s happening?’

‘Hi, Soph.’ His tone is flat, like he’s done ten rounds in an emotional ring.

‘Dad? Tell me what’s wrong.’ I swing my feet to the ground and flick on my bedside light.

‘I told your mother we should wait...until a reasonable hour.’

I know something’s up but I’ve got Mum and Dad on the line, safe—so maybe it’s about one of my friends? My ex? Cousins?

‘What is it?’ My voice is harsher than I intended.

A silence then Mum sobs, ‘John.’

John?

I rack my brains for a different John. A family friend? Relative?

Because the only John that comes to mind is my brother—but he was murdered nearly thirty years ago. Case closed…never resolved, but closed.

‘The police were just here,’ Dad continues. ‘There’s been another murder.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Just like John’s.’

‘What?’

‘They’re re-investigating John’s murder. And the cases of the other two boys who were killed before John.’

‘Oh God.’ I sink onto my bed, faint and nauseous.

John? After all these years? I’d given up on justice for John or my family—channelled the need to right the wrongs into my work, into other victims and families. I’m sure a part of me became a cop to find John’s killer, because as soon as I got into the Victoria Police I pulled his file and those of the other two boys. But despite a youthful confidence that I’d be able to solve the murders and fix our broken lives, I couldn’t see it…couldn’t see the major mistake the cops had made. Couldn’t see the needle in the haystack that would bring John’s killer to justice. As time went by and I moved up the ranks to Homicide I realised that some cases don’t get solved…ever. As much as I hated the thought that John’s murder was going to be one of those cases, eventually I came to accept it. Still, I could never shake the feeling that I’d failed. Failed myself and failed my brother. I shudder, sinking into the helplessness. Maybe the need to escape is one of the reasons I’d leapt at the chance to leave Australia and work for the FBI in America.

I still look at John’s file on the anniversary of his death every year, in the hope that something new will stand out for me. But for the past ten years or so it’s been more about the ritual than a belief that I could actually solve his murder.

And now this? After all this time? John’s killer was…is…a sex offender, a serial killer who preys on young boys. The bodies of three boys between the ages of nine and twelve were found over a five-year period. John was the last. And then nothing. We’d tried to pick up our lives as best we could, and I fled into law enforcement, driven by my desire for justice. It’s been so long since we dealt with any of this.

If a killer re-surfaces after a number of years it generally means one thing—he was doing time. And a very long stretch, like twenty or thirty years for multiple sentences.

There are a few other explanations for a serial killer suddenly stopping. My personal favourite is that the bastard was dead, preferably having gotten to that state in some slow and painful way. Severe illness is another explanation—maybe even a coma or life-changing injury like paraplegia. It’s also possible they refine their MO so that new bodies aren’t found, and sometimes they’ve moved away into someone else’s jurisdiction. One thing’s for sure…serial sex offenders don’t just suddenly stop. Not without a damn good reason. And now he was back.

‘Are you okay, Soph?’ Dad’s voice brings me back from the abyss.

‘I’m okay. It’s just…I can’t believe it.’ I stand up, pacing with the phone pressed hard against my ear and trying desperately not to picture a little boy’s crumpled and vulnerable body lying in a ditch somewhere. Trying not to see John’s killer strangling him. Bile rises, but I force it back down.

‘I can’t believe it either.’ Mum’s voice is barely a whisper.

The facts…the case. Stay focused, Sophie. I worked in Melbourne’s Homicide Department for six years; chances are I know the cops who just left my parents’ house.

‘Who were the detectives?’ I ask.

‘Detective Bradley Shaw and Detective Virginia Danahay,’ Dad answers. ‘I’m not sure if they’re in charge of the case or just doing initial re-interviews.’

‘I know Brad.’

‘Yeah…he said he knew you. You’ll talk to him?’

‘Yes…expect me home soon.’

‘What about the Bureau, darling?’

Mum knows how strict the FBI is with leave. Three weeks a year, and the rest of the time I’m officially on call 24/7. But nothing can keep me out of Australia now. The new murder could blow John’s case open, but it also means another generation of young boys is in danger. There’s only one place for me now—home.

‘They’ve gotta give me leave for this, Mum. Compassionate grounds and all.’ I glance at my watch again. No travel agents or airlines will be open now, but I can probably jump online and book a ticket.

‘I need to tie up a few loose ends here but I’m coming home and the sooner the better.’

‘Okay, darling.’

I can hear the relief in Mum’s voice. This is a time for us all to be together, not half a world apart. Besides, with my contacts and expertise I should be able to move things in the right direction. I may be an interfering pain-in-the-arse to Brad and the other detectives, but who cares?

Only one thing matters now: finding John’s killer and making him pay.

By 7am I’m packed, booked on the 11.30pm Qantas flight out of LAX and on my way to work. I haven’t called my boyfriend Darren yet, but it’s on my list. Soon enough. I’ve also avoided calling Detective Brad Shaw, opting to simply show up at the St Kilda Road Office in person. Might work better than giving him a heads-up and twenty-four hours’ notice. I probably should have got the official Bureau sign-off before actually booking and paying for my flight but I can’t imagine them saying no, and if they do…well, nothing can keep me away. Not now.

As I’d expect, the office is still fairly quiet when I arrive. The majority of employees start around 8am, many aiming for 7.30am or even 7am to beat the worst of the notorious LA traffic. Today I’ll need all the time I can get, given I’ve got a lot of cases on my to-do list and no one to officially hand them over to. I certainly can’t wrap them all up by the end of the day, but I can prioritise, send some on to the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico and work on others while I’m back in Melbourne. Who knows how long I’ll be away for, but no matter what happens, I can’t imagine getting more than four weeks off from the FBI, even given the circumstances.

I slow down at Brady’s office, ready to go straight in, but his office is dark and Melissa’s desk is empty too. Another fifteen minutes and I’m sure they’ll both be in. I suppose fifteen minutes will give me enough time to put together a rough strategy of what should happen to my workload, and bosses do like to be approached with strategies, not problems.

While my computer fires up, I try to focus on my current cases, not John. The last thing I want to be doing is sitting at my desk for the next twelve hours getting my workload in order—I’d much rather be on a plane, now. I take a deep breath…means to an end, Sophie, means to an end.

I stare down at my weekly planner. My main focus this week was a profile of a serial rapist who’s attacked seven women in and around Redondo Beach. The LAPD is worried he may escalate to murder and want a profiler’s input. There are six other current requests for profiles from the LA region, a request for prosecution strategy input, plus my usual follow-ups on investigations I’ve already profiled. Most of the time cops keep me in the loop, but once every couple of months I phone the lead detectives of past cases, just to see if there have been any breaks or changes. I usually discover at least a couple of perps who have been caught and so I update my files and compare the perp with the offender profile I drafted, noting any points of difference. I’ll jump the next two weeks’ worth of follow-up calls to today, and can catch up on any others I miss when I get stateside again. Time to get rid of a few cases…

Andy Rivers is the head of the BAU and my old boss. I give his assistant, Janet, a call. Given they’re three hours ahead of us I shouldn’t have any trouble getting hold of her.

She answers after two rings.

‘Behavioral Analysis Unit.’

‘Hi Janet, it’s Sophie Anderson.’

‘Sophie, hey! It’s been a while. How’s LA treating you?’

I could tell Janet what’s going on, but I don’t feel the need to let her into my private life. I worked at the BAU for over a year and a half, but hardly anyone knows about my brother. It’s in my personnel file—no secrets from the official Bureau files—but generally only my direct bosses see the file…them and the Bureau shrinks.

‘I’m really enjoying the West Coast. How are you? Busy as always?’

‘You said it. Andy keeps me on my toes.’

‘Actually, I was phoning to see if you could manage a couple more cases?’

She makes a wincing noise down the line. ‘I’ll have to check with the boss, but tell me about them and their time frames.’

I decide to try to pass on three out of my six waiting files. ‘I’ve got two homicides and one child abduction case. To be honest they’re not particularly complex, I’m just snowed under.’

‘You must be…you hardly ever send cases our way.’

‘It’s busy.’ Not exactly a lie…it is busy, it’s just that’s not the reason why I’m handballing three profiles to the BAU. ‘In terms of time frame, I guess a week or two would be good.’

‘We should be able to get them assigned to someone for you, but I’ll check with Andy. Can you email me something? A formal request and a summary of each case should do it.’

‘Sure. Thanks, Janet.’

‘No problem. I hope you get a breather some time soon.’

‘Thanks.’ I hang up and take a deep breath, exhausted from the effort of trying to sound normal. Andy Rivers knows about John; I may give him a call with my real reason but not until I talk to Brady. I take a deep breath….Brady.

I gather up my six files and the printout of my Outlook Calendar for the next four weeks before making my way back to Brady’s office.

Melissa is at her desk and looks up. ‘Hey, what’s up?’

‘Hi.’ I force a smile. ‘I need to speak to Brady. Urgently.’ I look away, aware that I’m acting a little cagey.

Melissa gives me a quizzical glance but hits her intercom button. ‘Agent Anderson’s here to see you, sir. It’s urgent.’

Brady looks up. The intercom system is almost redundant, as Brady’s office is nearly totally glassed, giving him an easy visual out to Melissa’s desk and vice versa. When he wants privacy he closes the venetians.

Brady’s brow furrows together, but he gives me a nod. I’ve interrupted something, but Melissa did say the magic word—urgent.

‘Thanks, Melissa.’

Slipping into Brady’s office, my stomach is full of knots. I can’t stand the thought of talking to anyone, particularly Brady, about new leads in John’s murder, but there’s no other option. Brady’s great at running the LA Field Office, but his management skills are more about organisation and respect than people skills. I sure would rather be having this conversation with Andy Rivers back at Quantico.

I take a seat opposite him.

‘What’s up, Anderson?’

‘I’m sure you’ve read my personnel file, sir.’ I skirt around the issue a little.

‘Yes?’

I hesitate for a moment, reticent. Means to an end… ‘So you know about my brother.’

Brady shifts uncomfortably in his chair. We deal with crime—murder, rape, child abduction—every day but it’s always someone else’s child, someone else’s brother.

‘Yes, Anderson. I know.’

I give him a small nod. ‘My parents rang me early this morning. Another boy was found murdered in similar circumstances.’

His eyebrows knead together. ‘After so much time?’ He’s comfortable dealing with the topic on a more professional level and that suits me fine—I need to keep myself together today, which means keeping all conversations about John superficial and business-like. Or at least trying to.

‘Yes. It is unusual. And it raises lots of questions.’

‘Of course.’ Despite the acknowledgment I can tell he’s got no idea where this is going.

‘I’d like some time off, sir. I’d really like to be with my folks and I need to find out more about this latest killing.’

‘Oh.’ He seems a little surprised but then nods his understanding. ‘Of course. Your cases? Leave?’

I breathe a sigh of relief. It had occurred to me that Brady might not understand, might not want to let his one and only profiler go on leave so suddenly.

‘I’ve got my cases here, sir. One I should be able to finish today.’ I stop myself from adding if I can keep my head in the game. ‘And I believe the BAU will take three. That leaves another three, but I’d like to work on those in Australia, if that’s okay.’

He gives a little frown. ‘You know case files aren’t supposed to leave the building, let alone the country. I’ll need to think about that. And leave?’

‘I have two weeks of vacation time available. Maybe if I need more I can use the Bureau’s compassionate leave.’

‘Mmm…I don’t mean to be insensitive, Anderson, but isn’t that usually reserved for a death in the family?’

I clear my throat. ‘I’m not sure, sir.’

He gives a nod. ‘I’ll check with HR and let you know. When were you hoping to leave?’

‘ASAP. There’s a flight late tonight, actually.’

‘Tonight?’ His eyebrows arch. ‘Doesn’t give us much time, Anderson.’

‘I know, sir. But I’d like to investigate this recent victim. So the sooner I get there, the better.’

‘You’re going to work the case?’

‘Of course not, sir. But I can provide some expertise. Victoria Police only has one profiler. In fact, we’ve only got three in the whole country.’ Nothing’s changed since I left Victoria Police three years ago—Victoria still has only one profiler, Lily Murphy. I’m still in touch with her on and off, but who knows if she’ll be asked to profile the case. If she is, I’d like to contribute and if not, I’d like to draft a profile myself.

‘One profiler, huh? How come?’

I keep my answer brief. ‘Population, lower rates of violent crime and criminal profiling just isn’t as popular there.’

He nods. ‘Okay, Anderson. I hope you can help them.’ He even manages a smile.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll check with HR now.’

‘Thanks, sir.’

‘What else have you got on your workload?’

‘A prosecution strategy brief for a court case in four weeks’ time. A homicide. But I can write that on the plane.’

He nods. ‘Okay. I’ll need a full written summary of what’s happening with your workload before you leave today.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Good.’ He picks up the phone. ‘That’s it, Anderson.’

I stand up. ‘One other thing, sir.’

‘Yes?’ He looks back up at me.

‘I’d rather keep this as private as possible. I know you have to tell HR, but that’s it, right?’

‘I understand, Anderson. This is your personal life.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I give him another nod and make my way back to my desk, avoiding the curious gaze of Melissa. She’s one of my friends here in LA, but I’ve still never told her about John. It was so many years ago, and I know the reaction I’d get—shock, horror, sympathy. I’ve had it all before, and I don’t need people I work with looking at me differently. Feeling sorry for me. Of course it changes you, forever, but it’s my past, a different life.

The past...I sigh. My past life is slamming headlong into the present, now.  I bite into my lip hard as a wave of grief hits me.

Chapter 2

I’m typing speedily on my Netbook when my BlackBerry buzzes. I lurch out of the prosecution strategy and look at the display. Darren. About bloody time. I left a message for him eight hours ago, and while I’d thought about trying him again several times, in the end I was too flat-out to bring thoughts into action.

I close my Netbook, putting it into hibernation. ‘Hi.’

‘Hey. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you, Soph. I was in court.’

‘Until nine-thirty?’

‘No.’ He hesitates, no doubt wondering why I’m on the offensive. ‘Our guy suddenly changed his statement at a quarter to five,’ he explains, ‘and we’ve been chasing our tails ever since. What’s up?’

I sigh. There’s no use taking it out on Darren. There’s no way he’d intentionally blow off my phone call, plus my message was pretty vague. The day’s a blur, but I think I may have said “call when you can”, not “call me as soon as you get this message”. Our jobs often don’t allow us to return phone calls within a few minutes and we both understand that. Darren’s a homicide cop in Tucson, Arizona and works long hours over variable shifts. Plus he’s interviewing people, in court, on the road…hard to get a hold of. My duties tend to be more Monday to Friday, except my workaholic nature and the sheer volume of work that comes my way keeps me on a roughly sixty-hour week.

‘Are you okay?’ His voice is on edge.

‘Not really, no.’ A half-truth. The reality is I’ve been so busy all day I’ve barely had a chance to think about John. I’m not a quivering mess, even though I probably should be. ‘I’m at LAX, waiting for tonight’s flight to Melbourne.’

‘What? What’s happened?’

I take a deep breath, still wanting to avoid the subject. Even with Darren there’s a part of me that shuts down. ‘A young boy has been killed, and they think it’s related to John’s murder.’

‘Oh my God. That’s…’

Silence.

Darren’s speechless—which pretty much sums up the situation. After several seconds: ‘Oh, Soph, I’m so sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

A moment’s silence, then, ‘Do you know what the link is?’

I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. ‘No. I asked Mum and Dad a couple of hours ago, but they didn’t think to ask the cops. I’ve told them to wait for me now. No point in them trying to decipher all those details.’

‘True. They must be shell-shocked. Your poor Mom.’ Darren met my parents eleven months ago in LA, before we were together.

I don’t know how Mum will cope with this. I can’t remember much from the time John was abducted, or from the year between his abduction and the discovery of his body, but sometimes I get the feeling she only just scraped through. Certainly if John had been an only child…

‘I’m worried about Mum. In some ways I wish she didn’t have to go through all this…again.’

‘Mmm…you never truly accept an unsolved death, but you move on as best you can.’

‘Exactly.’

He blows out air forcefully. ‘I wish I was sitting beside you right now. Getting on that plane with you.’

I smile. ‘Me too.’ Two-fold: I’d love Darren’s company now, plus he’s a fantastic cop, and, given that child abduction by strangers is, horrifically, so much more common in America, the cops here are more experienced with this particularly heinous type of crime. I’m hoping the Victoria Police can use my expertise, but I could use Darren’s.

‘Darren, will you look at the file for me? If I get a copy of everything to you?’ He’s looked at John’s file once before, but maybe this new murder will reveal something important.

‘Of course. Soph, I hope to be with you in Australia as soon as possible. If that’s okay?’

I feel my shoulders relax down. ‘That’s more than okay. Are you sure?’

He gives a little scoffing laugh. ‘Of course. This is…this is your brother’s murder, your family. Like I said, I wish I was boarding that plane with you.’

‘Thanks, Darren.’

‘Like you wouldn’t do the same for me.’

He’s right, I would. In a heartbeat.

‘How are doing? Honestly?’ he asks.

‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. Every now and again I feel it, think about it properly, and a wave of grief or nausea hits me. But for the most part I’ve been on the go for the past eighteen hours, trying to get everything organised at work.’

‘It’s not the time for stoicism, you know.’

‘That’s a big word for a cop.’

He chuckles for a second before clucking his disapproval at me. ‘I know what you’re doing, Sophie. Humour is a form of repression.’

Part of me wants to fire back, You really know how to bring a girl down, but I know all hell would break loose if I tried for another joke.

‘All right, all right. I give in.’

‘Sometimes I wish you would.’

Give in? Sometimes I wish I could too.

Another stretch of silence.

‘Have you looked at John’s file again?’

I’m sure Darren knows the answer to that question, but I respond anyway. ‘Yes, before work this morning.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing, as usual…on all fronts.’

For a week before John disappeared I had nightmares about a boy being chased by a man, about John being in danger. And the night he was taken I had a full waking vision of his murder, from the perpetrator’s point of view.

John was crying, and the man was happy.

Then his hands encircled John’s neck, squeezing until John went limp. A surge of adrenaline and renewed happiness flowed through the bastard.

I saw this. Felt it, too.

I was eight, and it was devastating. I repressed the dream and the vision for many, many years. Until about two years ago, when I started seeing things relating to the DC Slasher case. The visions returned then, with a vengeance. But they weren’t about my brother—they were about the case I was working on, and this entering into killers’ and victims’ heads from afar became a semi-regular part of my life.

It took me a while to accept this talent, especially since I’d always thought psychics were a load of rubbish. But eventually I came to terms with it and decided I’d use it to help find killers and other criminals in the cases that come across my desk every day. And since this gift of mine has re-surfaced I’ve tried many times to use it on John’s murder, but always with the same result—the same dream, the same vision. Never anything new. After several attempts I gave up, unable to put myself through it again.

‘I think you’re too close, Soph. It’s too personal for you.’ Darren knows that my gift is silent when it comes to John.

I sigh. ‘Maybe. Or maybe I’ll get something with this new victim.’

‘I hope so, honey.’

‘Me too.’

After a few beats of silence, Darren says, ‘So, what are you doing now?’

‘Notes for the DPP. Homicide case. Until the boarding call.’

‘Wish I could help with your workload, somehow…’

‘It’s not too bad. I handed over three cases to the BAU and managed to get permission from Brady to access electronic versions of my three other case files remotely. No hardcopies, no printouts. So nothing that could get stolen or misplaced, or wind up in the hands of the public or media.’

‘Fair enough.’ A pause. ‘Call me when you land?’

‘Sure. It’ll be tomorrow night your time.’

‘Thanks, hon. I’m going to get on the phone and see if I can’t organise me some leave.’

I smile. ‘Sounds good.’

We say goodbye and hang up.

I was hoping to go back home with Darren at some stage in the next twelve months. I was looking forward to showing him Australia and to him getting to know my parents better. But, now? This is how he’s going to see my parents again and be introduced to Australia?

When I made Homicide at Victoria Police, I’d photocopied the complete contents of the three cold-case murder files and also scanned and printed out the crime-scene photos in colour. On the plane, I start with the file of the first boy, angling myself into the window even though there’s a spare seat between me and the aisle-seat passenger, a man in his early twenties who’s hitting the free drinks, hard. These photos sure as hell would sober him up.

Ryan Stokes was abducted from his home in Bendigo two days before his ninth birthday. It was a hot January night in 1975 and the country property had all its windows open—like most Australian houses do in the peak of summer. The flywire screen in Ryan’s bedroom had been cut around the frame with what police identified as a sharp instrument much like a Stanley knife. No jagged edges and no hesitation marks. The killer had started at the top in the middle and worked his way around the flimsy flywire clockwise. This bit of forensic work gives us one small detail—the killer is right-handed. There was no sign of a struggle in Ryan’s room, and the mother, a reportedly light sleeper, didn’t stir. So presumably there was no scream, no scuffle. Perhaps Ryan was knocked unconscious while he slept, or he may have been drugged to ensure the perp could remove him from the family home with ease. A torn piece of Ryan’s pyjamas on the window frame suggested he was dragged out the same way the perp came in. Again, this indicates the boy was not fully conscious—most people being dragged out of a window are going to make some noise. There were no unknown fingerprints found in the bedroom, but forensics did discover a brown hair. However, in 1975 DNA identification systems had yet to come to the forensic and criminal justice worlds.

Next, I flick through the printouts of the crime-scene photographs. They’ve been boxed up with John’s case, but the papers and pages are well-worn from my annual review. Ryan’s house was a typical country home, much like our own property just outside Shepparton. Four steps at the front led up to a wooden veranda that encircled the front and both sides of the house. It was a weatherboard home—hot as hell in the Australian summer and freezing during winter—and the white boards needed new paint in a few areas. The house was surrounded by a small but quite lush garden. Not many gardens are like that in Victoria now—definitely built way before water restrictions. So many English settlers had come to Australia and planted English-style gardens, not realising how much water they’d need to cope with the Australian climate. The Stokes’ garden looked like it was out of a magazine—beautiful roses of red, pink and yellow; lavender; a path lined with knee-high box-hedges; daisies in perfectly manicured flowerbeds, alongside the striking yellow of primroses and the rich purple of violets. The garden also had annuals like begonias and the popular hydrangea, in pinks and purples. The pictures bring a smile to my face…bet you couldn’t maintain that garden nowadays, not on weekly waterings.

Going through the internal shots I’m reminded, once again, of our own family home. Carpet throughout, a stark contrast to the now-popular floorboards; brown tiles in the kitchen; blue floral tiles in the bathroom with bronze tap fittings and a large bath. Ryan’s room had sign-of-the-times posters of movies and pop stars, like Herbie, Jaws, Kiss and David Cassidy. The window in his room was just like our windows—you turned the sash fastener at the top and heaved with all your might to slide the pane of glass upwards. I scan the many photos of the flywire, which had been so easily cut to give the perp full access to Ryan. The perpetrator was an organised offender who planned the abductions meticulously. He obviously watched Ryan and the house, presumably knew or could deduce that the only thing standing between him and Ryan Stokes was the flimsy mesh of flywire.

Next, I move to the second set of crime-scene images, the body dump site. Ryan’s skull was found by a bushwalker in the Greater Bendigo National Park nearly two years after the abduction. The rest of his remains had been spread around the area by animals. It was 15 December 1976 and the forensic anthropologist estimated that Ryan had been dead for twelve to eighteen months. The decomposition process was well and truly complete, with only hair and bone remaining. Dental records, along with the forensic anthropologist’s findings on sex, age and race, provided a positive ID.

But Ryan wasn’t alone. Only a few metres away lay the badly decomposed but mostly intact body of Cameron Howell, who’d been abducted from his home in February 1976. His body was in the final stages of decomposition, disturbingly indicating that the perpetrator kept the boys for months. Cameron Howell’s time of death was estimated to be roughly six weeks earlier—mid-October and nearly eight months after his abduction. However, these results have to be taken in the context of the forensic procedures in the seventies, before the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine was established in 1987. Prior to the VIFM, autopsies in rural areas were generally conducted by a doctor at the local hospital, not by someone trained specifically in forensic pathology. As a result, the autopsies from the seventies aren’t as conclusive as our current-day autopsies.

Neither boy was ever sighted after their abduction, so we can assume the killer was able to keep them isolated. If this scenario was the American suburbs, you’d think perhaps a basement. But most Australian homes don’t have basements, so it’s more likely the killer either lived alone, and perhaps rurally where he could keep the boys completely under his control, or he had a secondary property where he was guaranteed complete privacy. Again, the length of captivity and the rural dumping sites both point towards a perpetrator who lives, or lived, in rural Victoria and probably in the Central Victoria region. Killers generally hunt in a region they feel comfortable in, usually close to their home or work. Ryan and Cameron were both from Bendigo. And then there was John in Shepparton, one-hundred and twenty kilometres north-east of Bendigo, just over an hour’s drive. Had the killer moved? Expanded his target area? Or perhaps he travelled for work—not that uncommon in country Victoria. Could be he worked in Bendigo and lived in Shepparton, or vice versa.

I go back to Ryan Stokes’ file, but there’s nothing else of interest in it. The police drew a blank in every department—no strangers had been hanging around Ryan at school or home, there were no “dodgy” associates in his life or those of his parents, no sightings, no physical evidence except the hair found at his house. And his body didn’t reveal much—they couldn’t even ascertain a cause of death. I know from my vision that John was strangled, and I know from my work as a profiler that sexual predators who attack and kill young children usually strangle them, most commonly manually. Likewise, even though Ryan’s skeletal remains couldn’t confirm or prove sexual assault, it was assumed. Why else would someone abduct these three boys, keep them for months on end, and then kill them? Again, I have to force myself not to think of John, not to think of the fact that one of the victims is my brother. Part of me can’t bear to know what happened to John in those months of torture, but part of me has to know…and know everything.

I focus on the case notes, the psychology. From a profiler’s perspective one of the most confusing, or perhaps telling, aspects of the crime is the presence of underwear on the boys. Most children—nearly eighty percent—abducted by strangers are killed within the first three hours. The sexual assault and then murders are quick—rushed—and the bodies are usually found naked or with their clothing out of place. Girls will have their skirts pulled up with their underwear around their legs, while male victims will have their pants pulled down—again, often not totally removed. But this killer kept the boys for nearly a year and then dumped them in only their underwear. Did the killer need to cover their genitals? Cover their “sexuality”? It could be a sign of remorse, or it could mean that while the boys had been sexualised beings for him, after death he saw them in a different light.

Or perhaps the killer found this image erotic. For most of us, a pre-teen boy in his underwear conjures up ideas of boyish fun. In Australia, particularly the seventies, it makes me think of John and me playing under the sprinkler in our underwear or diving into the river on a hot day. We’d strip down to our underwear without thinking twice about it. But to a small, extremely perverted sub-section of the community, it’s….I take a deep breath, barely even able to comprehend it…arousing.

I close the file and rest my head back against the seat, tears welling in my eyes. But the grief is quickly replaced by something I know too well—the need for justice…or maybe vengeance. I couldn’t protect John all those years ago; who would have listened to an eight-year-old’s ramblings about a dream? But now I can serve him in an entirely different way. One way or another, the bastard who took John’s life and ruined ours forever is going to pay.

He’s startled out of his sleep by a hand being jammed across his nose and mouth. A man’s face is only a few centimetres from his. Light from the hallway streams into the boy’s room casting long shadows from a few toys near the door.

‘Keep quiet or I’ll kill your parents.’ His voice is husky, urgent and menacing. ‘And your baby sister.’

The boy’s eyes widen with alarm, and even in the darkness he can sense the determination in the man’s piercing eyes.

‘If you’re a good boy, I’ll leave them alone…promise. Okay?’ The man raises bushy eyebrows, waiting for a response.

The boy nods and the man loosens his grip slightly, allowing the boy to breathe properly once more.

‘There’s a good lad.’ He pulls the boy to standing and raises his arm.

The boy sees the rock but it’s too late…it crashes down onto his skull, blackening his world.

Chapter 3

I sigh…Australia is a hell of a long way from the rest of the world.

I’m one of many sleep-deprived passengers waiting in line, and while it’s possible a flight has just landed from New Zealand, it’s more likely that everyone around me has flown in from Asia, Europe or the US, which means they’ve each had anything from an eight- to thirty-hour plane journey. Luckily I had a direct flight from LA to Melbourne, a mere fifteen-hour stint.

My queue moves forward with a little surge, and a few people in the lines beside me try a switch. Lack of sleep and heavily laden trolleys are a recipe for disaster and I feel a trolley dig into my ankles.

‘Sorry.’

I resist the urge to succumb to my sleep-deprived grumpiness. It was an accident, after all, and they did apologise.

‘That’s okay,’ I manage.

The trolleys around me are loaded with big bags, small bags, golf clubs, surf boards, prams and everything from beaten up suitcases with dark tape stretched across weak spots to matching Armani sets that hardly look shop-soiled, let alone baggage-handler-soiled. In most cases, the luggage on the trolleys matches the passengers and I reckon I would have scored well in a match-the-suitcase-to-the-traveller game. Apparently the profiler in me doesn’t like to rest.

I’m in one of the many “nothing-to-declare” lines, but that doesn’t mean the people in front of me or around me won’t have their luggage searched—and I might too. We’re all in this together, with no business-class lines in Australian Customs to fast track Ms Armani. I push the trolley forward, wondering how my parents are doing. They say time heals many wounds, but I think the latest development may be ripping into the scar tissue. I can only hope that the killer’s recent activities will be his undoing—maybe then the wound will truly have a chance to heal rather than remaining the dodgy knee for which one always has to compensate.

Eventually I get to a Customs official and pass him my declaration card. ‘No vegetable or animal products?’ he confirms, even though I’ve ticked that box clearly. It’s been a while since I’ve been home and his accent sounds thick—much more Aussie than me. Maybe it’s only my perception, or perhaps my accent has changed with so much time spent in the States.

‘No, nothing.’ Not this time. In the past I’ve declared chocolate, even though it’s not a banned item. I’ve made two trips home since relocating to the US and both times I’ve brought Dad Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars—plus the most recent copies of New York Times and USA Today. But this trip, chocolate and papers were the last things on my mind. In fact, I can’t even really remember packing. Who knows what I threw into my suitcase at five in the morning—I may have even forgotten underwear.

‘And no cash over $10,000?’ He eyes the silver briefcase that contains my Netbook, BlackBerry, wallet, FBI credentials and travel documents.

‘Nope.’

‘Can I ask what’s in the briefcase?’

I should have gone for a more subtle briefcase—and I certainly would have preferred a cheaper model—but it was the best I could manage on such short notice. Brady insisted I carry my Netbook and BlackBerry in a locked, carry-on bag as an additional security measure. However, this briefcase screams “valuables”—cash, diamonds…cocaine.

‘It’s got my computer, mobile phone, wallet and travel documents.’

‘Pretty heavy security for a briefcase.’

‘I work for the FBI in the States, so the security’s for my Netbook and phone,’ I explain.

He raises an eyebrow. ‘FBI, huh? Never heard of an Aussie working for the FBI.’

I smile. ‘My dad’s American. I’ve got dual citizenship.’

He nods slowly, and for a moment I think he’s going to ask for my American passport and FBI ID, but after a few seconds he gives a little grunt. ‘Okay, move along.’

‘Thanks.’

On this side of the arrivals area of Melbourne Airport all you can see are four double doors that span the length of the Customs area, about eighty to one-hundred metres wide. I push the trolley towards the nearest exit and with one final shove I hit the doors’ sensors and they open. Pausing on the other side, I look to the right and left. The public section of the international arrivals area has a metal, waist-high rail that runs along its length where waiting relatives congregate. I scan the crowd, which is roughly five-people deep, and start moving when I see Dad’s face floating above most of the other people. He spots me at the same time and gives me a wide smile. Not the usual grin I’d get but he does manage a genuine smile. Next, I see Mum bobbing up and down next to Dad’s six-four frame, obviously going from her flats to tip-toes. Dad points me out.

‘Soph!’ Mum yells, walking quickly to the end of the railing and the exit. She’s around the rail before me and pulls me into a strong hug, like I’m the sole survivor of a plane crash.

‘It’s going to be okay, Mum,’ I whisper in her ear.

She pulls away and shakes her head. ‘That’s what your dad keeps saying too. I don’t know what this is, Sophie, but it’s hardly okay.’

I bow my head. ‘You’re right, Mum. Sorry.’

She strokes my hair but looks off into the distance. ‘I can’t stop thinking about that poor boy’s family.’

It’s typical of Mum to think of others before herself, but the recent murder would also be reminding her of how she felt all those years ago. She’s been in this woman’s shoes and knows better than anyone, better than me, what it’s like to lose your son. And worse still, to lose him to a paedophile. Just thinking of that word sends waves of pure disgust through me. But Mum’s right…what that family, that mother, is going through now…

‘I know, Mum.’ When I was a homicide cop I used to witness families coping with the death of a loved one first-hand. Nowadays most of the cases I profile are older or more unusual cases, and thankfully it’s usually up to the cops to do the death knocks, not me. It’s never easy to inform a family of a death, let alone the murder of a child. Every murder is tragic—even if the victim was a killer, there’s usually someone who grieves—but a child, and taken by a…a perpetrator who steals the innocence of youth in such an evil way? The damage and repercussions of that can’t be described or quantified. As far as I’m concerned, no amount of suffering is enough for such a creature. But I don’t think Mum’s ever felt that sense of vengeance, of pure anger and hatred. Sometimes I think she should be consumed with rage, even after all these years.

Dad pulls me into a one-armed hug-squeeze combo. ‘Good to see you, kiddo.’

I lean into him. ‘You too, Dad.’

We make our way to the airport parking and within ten minutes we’re on the Tullamarine Freeway, heading to my parents’ Camberwell home. We sold up Shepparton soon after John’s body was found and my parents bought a four-bedroom “renovator’s delight” in Camberwell. The house would cost a small fortune nowadays, partly because of the area’s growth, and partly because Dad did most of the renovations himself. The two-storey brick home now has three bedrooms, a large study and the whole floor plan was opened up, so a large kitchen and family room extends into an outdoor living area via folding glass doors. They even got a swimming pool installed. The Camberwell home reminds me of the second part of my childhood—the part without John.

‘Have you heard from the police again?’ I ask as Dad sails past the Ring Road exit.

‘No.’ Dad glances at me in the rear-vision mirror. ‘And we haven’t contacted them, just like you asked. Are you close to this Brad?’

I shrug. ‘Not really, no. But I know him, respect him, and hopefully vice versa.’

Dad nods.

Silence.

‘Matt’s been calling,’ Mum says after a few minutes.

‘He left a message on my mobile too.’ It was the first time I’d heard from my ex since leaving Australia.

‘He asked for the number. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘That’s fine, Mum.’

Matt and I were living together when the FBI offered me my dream job. The fact that we were able to stop our relationship without too much heartache made me realise that we’d drifted apart. If it was meant to be, he would have come to the US or I would have stayed in Melbourne. I guess neither of us wanted the relationship badly enough.

‘I’ll call him later today.’

‘Good. He seemed pretty concerned.’

‘What did he say?’ I ask.

‘Just that he was sorry about what happened to John and feels for us now that it’s all being dredged up again.’

I wince, dreading the conversation. I’d never told him what happened to John. Obviously the media knows about the link between the latest victim and the boys from the seventies, and John’s name and face have been making news. I’m sure Matt is concerned for us, but he’s also going to be pissed off that I’d never confided in him.

Mum turns around and gives me a smile. ‘How’s Darren?’

It almost feels like the start of a normal conversation…almost.

‘He’s great. Trying to get time off so he can fly out here. He’s been really looking forward to seeing Australia, and you guys again. Although not like this…’ I trail off, unsure of how to finish the sentence.

‘No…not like this.’ Mum turns back around and concentrates on the road.

When my parents met Darren, they were meeting a colleague, a friend. But now that we’re in a relationship, it puts a totally different spin on the meeting. I was hoping we’d come to Australia as tourists—show Darren around my hometown and hang out with my parents. A relaxed holiday, and time for my folks to get to know him. Instead, we’re going to be thrown together in what is one of the most stressful and emotional times of our lives.

We sit in silence for another few minutes.

Dad gives me a little nod in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Remember that time John was playing in the car and took the handbrake off by mistake?’ A smile edges its way onto Dad’s face. ‘God, he loved sitting in that car and pretending he was a rally driver.’

I give a little snort. ‘I remember.’ I smile, also lost in the memory. ‘Pre-Wii.’ The seventies were also basically pre-computer. Now kids get to drive rally cars in video games or on computer consoles, but in our day it was imagination—maybe, if you were lucky, a steering wheel to add to the role-play.

Mum starts to laugh. ‘He would have loved Wii.’

I guess John will always be an eleven-year-old boy in our eyes—frozen in time forever.

Wearing a pair of black linen pants and a plain dark red top, I ride up the elevator to level twenty and Melbourne’s Homicide Bureau. I didn’t want to look like I was on the job, but I also wanted something more formal than jeans.

I don’t know the woman at the front desk, so when I ask to speak to Detective Brad Shaw I’m just a nameless member of the public.

‘Is he expecting you?’

‘No.’ I didn’t want to let him know I was coming, but at the same time it’s right on lunchtime now. He could be down the street getting a sandwich, or on the road somewhere.

‘And you are?’

‘Sophie Anderson.’

She gives me a little nod while she dials his extension. Luckily, Brad’s in the office, and soon I’m waiting for him in a small meeting room primarily used for the public. I wonder if Brad’s room choice is symbolic of how he’ll be treating me during this case—not as part of law enforcement, as an outsider.

Brad enters a couple of minutes later, carrying a case file and wearing a forced grin. He’s in his early forties, with masses of dark curls streaked with grey. His olive skin accentuates dark brown eyes and helps to hide his five o’clock shadow.

‘This is a surprise, Sophie.’ He extends an over-sized hand my way.

‘Really? I thought you knew me better than that.’

He laughs, replacing the forced smile with a genuine one. ‘You’re right…I should have known you’d be on the first plane home.’ Sitting down, he places the file on the table between us. ‘When did you get in?’

I eye the folder but answer the question. ‘My flight landed a few hours ago. I look back to the file. ‘What have you got?’

‘Straight to the point. Some things never change, huh?’

I shrug.

He leans forward, serious. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie. Sorry about your brother and sorry the bastard who did it is still out there.’

I’m unsure how to respond, so for a few seconds we sit in silence. Then I say, ‘To be honest, I thought he must have been dead. At least this way we can catch him.’

‘True.’ But Brad doesn’t look hopeful.

‘So what have you got?’ I get back to my original question.

He sighs. ‘The body of a fourteen-year-old boy, Ted Strawasky, was found three days ago.’

‘Fourteen? A little older than the others.’

‘Yes. Although he was small for his age and looked more like twelve.’ He smooths down his tie. ‘We’re looking at death around six months ago, no forensic evidence on-scene. No DNA, no fibres, no prints…’ He looks up at me. ‘If the guy did leave anything, it’s long gone.’

‘I get the picture.’

He nods. ‘As far as we can tell, the boy was naked, except for his underwear. At least, that’s the only remnants of clothing we found in the area and it fits with the other murders.’

Over the past six months, the elements would have taken their toll. Plus, animal activity would have spread the bones around and, while unlikely, it is possible additional clothing had been dragged off by some animal over the past six months.

‘He was taken from the family home in Euroa nine months ago. Unfortunately, the local cops pegged him as a runaway, not that anyone could have predicted an apparent resurgence from this killer. The kid had recently started going off the rails. Staying out late, getting into fights…that sort of thing.’

‘Any idea what caused the behavioural change?’

‘The parents split eight weeks before the kid disappeared. Dad was completely out of the picture, ran off with another woman to Queensland.’

I give a few quick nods of understanding. The boy’s primary male figure was suddenly gone, and at a crucial time in his adolescence—he was acting out his anger and frustration. This is good information; knowing the victim can teach you a lot about the perpetrator.

‘Cops even thought maybe the boy was heading to Queensland to be with his father.’

‘Did they canvass the area at all?’ I ask. ‘Treat the house like a crime scene?’

Brad shakes his head. ‘Back when it was reported? Not really, no. They looked around the house but couldn’t find any evidence of a struggle or forced entry, and there were no crime-scene techs called.’

Euroa is a small country town, farming land that’s also a stop-off point for anyone making the eight- to nine-hour drive along the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Sydney and vice versa. With less than three-thousand residents, they’ve got a small police station and only a few cops.

‘Plus the boy’s backpack was gone,’ Brad continues, ‘so that was in line with the runaway theory. For the first few days the mum was positive something bad had happened to her son, but eventually she conceded it was possible he’d taken off. Apparently they even had a fight that morning.’

I wince. Angry words as the last conversation, and now her son’s dead. The poor woman.

‘Cops did speak to a few of the neighbours, but no one saw anything. It was probably the middle of the night, like the others…’ Brad pauses and looks up, but then quickly averts his eyes. ‘It’s likely the guy was watching the victim for some time.’

I don’t let myself visualise the perp watching Ted Strawasky…or John.

‘Was it a hot night? Windows open?’ I ask.

‘We checked the weather records—thirty during the day, down to twenty-two overnight. So not as hot as it was for the earlier abductions. As for the windows…it’s not something Mrs Strawasky was questioned about until we went back three days ago.’

Nine months after the fact. ‘What’s her best recollection?’

‘She’s not sure, but when we questioned her on what she does with the windows during hotter days she reckons that with an overnight minimum of twenty-two she probably would have left at least one or two windows open. And quite possibly the windows were unlocked.’

‘Flywires?’ A flash of the crime-scene photo from Ryan Stokes’ window jumps out at me, flywire expertly cut.

‘Nothing on the police report, and the cops who responded to the initial call said they did look for signs of breaking and entering.’

It’s unlikely the flywire was cut then. A standard walk-through of the crime scene and around the house would have noted that.

I lean back and blow out some air. ‘Tell me about the body dump site.’

‘It was Broken-Boosey Park.’ He clears his throat. ‘The same place where your brother was found.’

I push on, focusing on this boy, not John. ‘But yet this boy was taken from Euroa.’

‘Yes. So we’ve got abduction sites in Bendigo, Euroa and Shepparton and dump sites in Bendigo and Shepparton.’

‘Why go back to his old stomping ground to dump the victim, but not to abduct?’ I’m asking myself rather than Brad, but nonetheless Brad responds.

‘That’s something we’re looking into now.’

I run my fingers across my bottom lip, feeling the deep indentations caused by the past forty hours of digging my front teeth down. Biting my lip is something I frequently catch myself doing. I’ve tried to stop, but it’s become an unconscious gesture now. Sometimes I don’t notice I’m doing it until my lips are red raw.

‘I always thought the guy must have lived or worked in Shepparton or Bendigo,’ I say. ‘Or maybe he lived somewhere in between but was in both Shepparton and Bendigo for work. He’s definitely familiar with the location.’

‘Agreed.’

‘But now Euroa’s a third point…and it gives us a triangle.’

‘Geographical profiling?’ Brad queries.

‘It’s something we could use. I certainly think our guy must live inside that triangle somewhere.’

Brad runs a hand across his head, perhaps trying to tame the mass of curls. ‘We’re also looking into the possibility that he’s got a weekender in the area. Or maybe he’s moved to Euroa but is still familiar and comfortable in Shepparton.’

I nod. ‘He’s definitely familiar with the parks, possibly a local or someone who grew up in the area. But a weekender? That would mean he leaves the boys Monday to Friday, assuming he works. They’re his playthings and I don’t know if he could limit his “enjoyment”,’ I mark air quotes, ‘to the weekends. It’s possible, but we’re talking about an extremely high level of control.’

‘He’s been dormant for nearly thirty years. Maybe control isn’t an issue for this guy.’

I take in a deep breath, staring at the stark white wall opposite me. The guy’s a mystery all right.

After a few minutes I bring us back to the evidence. ‘In the 1975 abduction of Ryan Stokes, a hair was found.’

‘Yes, I’ve submitted it to forensics, but they think DNA’s unlikely.’

I clear my throat. ‘Um, I actually submitted it myself a few years ago.’

‘What? That’s not in the file.’

‘No. I called in a few favours.’

Brad’s eyes narrow. ‘Sophie, you tampered with evidence.’

‘I only submitted it like anyone would for a cold case,’ I say, even though I know how much I’ve stuffed things up. It’s serious, particularly now that the case is re-opened.

He shakes his head and blows out some air. ‘But you didn’t log it, Sophie. And that’s the problem. I should walk out of here right now.’

My heart skips a beat, panicked by the prospect that Brad’s going to cut me loose. Let’s face it, he’d be justified. It was a foolish thing to do.

Despite his frustration, Brad stays seated and after a long pause he finally says, ‘I take it you didn’t have any luck?’

‘The hair wasn’t in good enough nick to retrieve DNA. Still, that was a few years ago. Maybe now they can get something.’ Like many sciences, DNA analysis is constantly evolving and being refined.

‘Lab reckons it’s doubtful but they’re gonna have a go.’ He shakes his head again. ‘I can’t believe you, of all people.’

I’m a stickler for procedure, for doing the right thing, and Brad knows it.

‘You should have logged it. Our chain of evidence is rooted now.’

I can’t help but smile at Brad’s Aussie slang—it’s been a long time since I’ve heard “rooted” instead of “screwed”. But the smile is quickly gone…Brad’s right, the chain of evidence is compromised. What if we find DNA on the hair and it’s our only evidence against the guy in court? It’ll probably be inadmissible.

‘It’s not something I’m proud of, Brad. When I first made Homicide, I couldn’t stop thinking about that hair…I couldn’t resist. I was a rookie. A few years later I either wouldn’t have done it or I would have logged it officially, that’s for sure.’

‘I know why you did it, I do, but I don’t think I can just sit on this, Sophie.’ He gives an exasperated grunt. ‘Jesus.’

Brad has to decide whether to disclose my major faux pas and add it to the file, or keep his mouth shut.

‘Why don’t we see how the evidence pans out? No point bringing it up officially if we still can’t get DNA.’

He takes a deep breath. ‘True.’

I hide my sigh of relief. Brad’s cutting me some slack.

I let him sit with it for several seconds before moving on. ‘And you’re sure of the link? Between this and the past murders?’ It looks pretty conclusive—the abduction MO is the same; the body dump site is the same as John’s; all boys were kept by the perpetrator for lengthy periods of time, even though this one is only three months instead of six to nine. ‘Is it possible we’re dealing with a similar perpetrator, or even a copycat instead of the same guy?’

‘A copycat’s unlikely. Ted Strawasky was dumped within fifty metres of…’ He pauses again. ‘…of your brother.’

I nod. ‘Pretty close, too close to be coincidence.’

‘Uh huh.’

Silence.

‘Sophie?’ His voice is tentative.

I look up.

‘I’ve given you a lot of information. What are you hoping to do with it? To do here?’

‘Help as much as I can. I’ve learnt a lot in the States. About offender profiling, but also paedophiles. I can help.’ While I moved to America as a career move, it may have also given me the tools and know-how to finally find John’s killer.

‘Mmm…’ His lips are pursed together tightly. ‘About that…’

I roll my eyes. ‘Come on, Brad. You’re not seriously going to pull jurisdiction on me, are you?’

‘You’re not Homicide, Soph. Shit, you’re not even Vic Police. And you’ve got a personal interest in this case.’

I shake my head. ‘Get over it, Brad. And as for my emotional involvement—I know how to do my job. Don’t refuse my help just for procedure. We can keep it all unofficial, under the radar.’

‘It’s not me I’m worried about.’

‘Your partner? Danahay?’

‘Nah, she’s great. It’s higher up I’m worried about.’

As far as I know Barry Jones is still the head of Homicide and we’ve always got on well—well enough that I think I could get away with tagging along. But perhaps things have changed. Even though I’ve only been in the US for just under three years, I’ve lost contact with most people from this part of my life. I joined the Force in my mid-twenties and always found I had more in common with my school and uni friends. I used to socialise with the other cops, of course, but I was never really close to anyone in the Victoria Police. Not close enough to stay in touch with regular emails. The closest I come is Facebook—which facilitated a reconnection with some people, including the Victorian profiler Lily Murphy, but doesn’t really feel like a reliable connection.

Two short raps on the door cause both Brad and I to turn. Within seconds the door opens and in walks Louis Faulkner. It takes all of my effort to keep my face expressionless. Faulkner? Don’t tell me he’s part of Homicide now...

‘What’s going on, Brad?’ Faulkner gives me a curt nod, but doesn’t even acknowledge that we know each other.

‘You remember Sophie Anderson?’

I resist the urge to smile. Of course Faulkner remembers me and Brad knows all about our history. I was promoted to Homicide over Faulkner. He was sure it was his job, but instead Barry Jones chose me. There isn’t a hope in hell that Faulkner would have forgotten. I even overhead him talking to one of the old-timers two weeks after my promotion complaining about positive discrimination—that I’d been given the job because I was a woman and the Victoria Police was merely bowing to equal opportunity supporters. What a joke. It was still a boys’ club when I left; I doubt anything’s changed.

‘Anderson.’ Faulkner gives me another officious nod, but doesn’t manage eye contact. ‘Why are you talking to Miss Anderson, Brad?’ The way he hisses the word “Miss,” I can see right through him. Not only is he emphasising the fact that I don’t have a title like detective or agent over here, he’s also going for the politically incorrect Miss rather than Ms. Not that I’d expect anything but this type of pettiness from him. The man’s a dinosaur, even though he’s only about forty. He’s third-generation cop and stuck in an era where cops are working-class heroes not university graduates. Personally, I don’t think there’s such thing as an over-educated cop, as long as it’s combined with street smarts and on-the-job experience. I imagine Faulkner disagrees strongly with Victoria Police’s strategy of recruiting from university.

I give him a sweet-as-pie smile.

Brad crosses his legs. ‘I was just updating Sophie on the case, Sarg.’

Sarg? Oh, shit. Don’t tell me…

‘Ah yes, of course.’ Now it’s Faulkner’s turn to smile, but his isn’t so sweet. ‘I can’t tell you how surprised I was to discover that your brother was murdered. A victim of this same perpetrator all those years ago.’

Bastard. ‘That’s right, Louis.’ I keep my voice open, unwilling to show him any grief or distress. ‘I flew in to Australia today.’

The subtle reminder that I’m working in the US for the FBI wipes the smile off his face. I know how jealous he was of that career leap.

He gives me another sickly smile. ‘We’re not in America, Anderson. This is my Homicide Department, my people.’ He turns to Brad. ‘My office, now,’ he says before slamming the door shut.

Brad stands up and runs a hand through a curl that’s starting to get a little long at the front. ‘Sorry. I should have warned you.’

‘What happened to Jones?’

‘Retired six months ago.’

‘And they promoted Faulkner? What the…?’

He shrugs. ‘Like they say, sometimes it’s who you know.’

I sigh. ‘I feel sorry for you guys. Can’t think of a worse boss.’

He grimaces. ‘Mmm.’ A pause, then, ‘Actually, he’s better since the promotion. Well, except for just then.’

Silence for a few moments.

‘So, is that my copy?’ I motion to the file on the table.

Brad laughs. ‘Nice try. If Faulkner hadn’t interrupted I was going to leave you alone with the file for a bit. But now?’

‘Go on.’

Brad shakes his head. ‘He’s an observant bastard. First thing he’ll be looking for when I come into his office is this file in my hand.’ He picks it up and stands. ‘Maybe another time, huh?’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

‘You might be interested to know who did the autopsy.’

I smile. ‘Sure.’

‘Sally Burns.’

My smile widens. ‘Thanks, Brad.’

‘You’re welcome.’

I stand too. ‘And is Lily Murphy involved?’ Victoria Police’s one and only profiler.

Brad walks me to the door. ‘Faulkner approved it today. We’re briefing her first thing tomorrow.’

I sigh, desperate to be in that briefing but knowing that with Faulkner in charge there isn’t a hope in hell. ‘Thanks for talking to me, Brad.’

‘No worries.’ His hand pauses on the handle. ‘I was surprised too, Soph.’

I didn’t tell anyone at work about John. My bosses knew, some bureaucrats and the original detectives, but that’s it.

I stare at Brad’s hand on the doorknob. ‘No one knew.’

He turns the handle and opens the door before looking me in the eye. ‘Well I’m sorry. Really sorry.’

Chapter 4

I pull up outside the State Coroner’s Office of Victoria. Sally Burns is waiting out the front for me, dragging hard on a cigarette. You’d think with all the post-mortem lungs she sees she’d quit smoking.

Once I’m out of the car and have fed the meter I make my way towards her. Within a few seconds she sees me and takes a long drag before grinding it into a nearby outdoor ashtray. Sally Burns is in her early sixties, with long black and grey hair and a slightly hippy air to her. Today she’s wearing black leggings, a black skirt and a long flowing top over it. And while this dress style could hide a few pounds, on Sally it accentuates her long and slender frame.

She blows the smoke to one side and then heads for me. ‘Sophie. Good to see you. How are you? Well, besides the obvious…sorry, stupid thing to say.’

I smile, having forgotten about Sally’s manic nature and bouts of verbal diarrhoea. ‘I’m good, Sally.’ We give each other a kiss and hug and I can’t help but notice the strong smell of nicotine and coffee that seeps from her pores, clothes and hair.

She keeps a hold of me and rubs her hands up and down my arms. ‘My poor darling. I can’t believe you never told me.’

I shrug. ‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

She shakes her head. ‘Why ever not, darling? Don’t worry, I know the answer to that question, but it’s silly. That’s what friends are for, huh?’ She grabs my hand and walks me into the building. ‘I’m here for you, sweetie. And we’re going to get this bastard.’

I smile. Sally Burns is one of the best in the business. If anyone can find something, it’s her.

She pulls me through the automatic doors and flashes a smile at the security guard. ‘Hi, Bob. This is a friend of mine.’

He smiles, but also shakes his head. ‘Come on, Sally, sign her in. You know the procedure.’

Sally sighs. ‘Oh, Bob. She’s just here for a quick chat.’

Bob hesitates, but then sticks to his guns, tapping the sign-in book.

While I’m signing in, Sally asks Bob about his wife and two kids. Sally’s a dedicated worker, but she also believes in good old-fashioned manners and conversation and she takes a personal interest in those around her.

A few seconds after I’ve signed in and Bob’s checked my ID, Sally says, ‘Okay, Bob. Well, I’ll see you later.’

‘Bye, Sally.’

She gives me a wink and grabs my hand again. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ She sets her usual fast pace. ‘So, tell me, how’s the US?’

‘Great. I love it.’

She smiles. ‘And the Yanks?’

For some reason quite a few Australians seem to have an unfounded distaste for Americans. They’re stuck on a stereotype, even though I know first-hand that it only applies to a few.

‘Try not to keel over, but I love America and Americans.’

‘I can’t abide a country that doesn’t have free healthcare.’ She shudders. ‘It’s…it’s not right. Capitalism over socialism…bah.’ She takes a breath and pulls me to the right, down the long corridor to the autopsy room. ‘Besides, it’s quite possible for elements of the two to co-exist. You can be wealthy and successful and provide for the less fortunate via a few extra dollars in tax. Duh.’

I’m beginning to think I’m in for a full-on political rampage, but then Sally changes the topic.

‘So, you love Americans. Any one American in particular?’ She gives me another little wink.

‘Actually, I am seeing a guy from Arizona.’

‘Really? Serious?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘That’s great news, darling. God knows you need something or someone to keep you out of the office.’

‘Yeah.’ I don’t tell Sally that I’ve gotten worse over the past few years, spending more time at the office and then throwing myself into gym, Kung Fu and Bikram yoga during the little free time that I do have. Besides, she’s right…Darren has forced me to better my work-life balance, at least on the days he’s in LA. The rest of the time I can indulge my obsessive nature a little more.

‘So, tell me all about him. Tall, dark and handsome?’ She takes a left and finally lets go of my hand so I can keep up with her under my own steam rather than feeling like a disobedient child being dragged home.

‘He is actually. Dark hair, blue eyes and five-eleven, so tallish I guess.’ Darren is good-looking but he’s not breathtakingly handsome, with women throwing themselves at him. His good looks are more understated, partly because of his personality and partly because he wears casual, low-key clothes rather than looking like he’s just stepped out of a designer catalogue.

‘And he’s a sweetie,’ I add.

‘What? Looks and personality?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Keep going.’

‘He’s smart, kind, caring and interesting. And he knows what life is like in law enforcement.’

She nods. ‘So he’s in the biz?’

‘He’s a homicide cop and we met on a case. We were friends for a while and then started dating long-distance five months ago.’

‘And he’s American?’

I laugh. ‘Yes. I told you, I love Americans, especially this one.’

‘Good for you, darling. Is he out here with you?’ She swipes her card on a door lock and we move into one of the autopsy rooms.

‘No, but he’s hoping to join me soon.’

She nods and moves across to the nearest metal trolley. A white sheet covers the remains, but it looks…wrong. The body is small, running only about one-third the length of the gurney, and the sheet falls loosely to the sides. A person that small, that young, should never be in here. I take in the rest of the room, even though I’ve seen it a thousand times before, when I was working in Melbourne. Sometimes I think every morgue is the same—white tiles, fluorescent lights and cold, still air with a faint scent of formaldehyde.

After a few moments of looking at anything but the body, I force myself towards the gurney. Eventually, my eyes come back to the tiny form under the sheet.

Sally’s studying me from the opposite side of the gurney, now serious. ‘Are you ready?’

I nod slowly.

She pulls back the sheet. ‘This is Ted Strawasky, fourteen years old.’

I gasp and take a few steps back, confused by what I see. A vision or my eyes playing tricks on me?

Sally reacts quickly, pulling the sheet up over the boy again. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘He…he looks like my brother.’

She shoots me an odd look. ‘But, Sophie…this body is six months old. There’s not much more than a skeleton.’

‘What?’ I move closer.

‘Maybe this is too much for you, sweetie. I mean, I don’t have to…’ she tugs on the sheet, indicating our conversation can go on without the sheet coming off.

She’s right…hell, we could even have this conversation in her office or over coffee, but I wanted to see the victim, get a more physical sense of him. It’s hard to describe, but somehow seeing the remains is more valuable than simply looking at the autopsy report and photos. But if there’s only a skeleton under there, why did I see a boy who looks like John? I think back to the image—the body was well-preserved, like he’d only been dead for a few hours, a day at the most. It must have been a split-second vision.

‘Sorry, my mind’s playing tricks on me. Guess it’s the jetlag…and it’s an emotional time. But I’m fine.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s okay if you’re flipping out, Sophie.’ She speaks much slower than usual. ‘This could be another victim of the same man who murdered your brother. You don’t have to do this. You’re not on the case.’

‘I want to see him. I need to see him.’ I need to see the skeleton, not the boy who looks like John.

She takes a deep breath. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay.’ She pulls the sheet back slowly, more carefully this time, revealing skeletal remains. The skin and body tissue has decomposed fully, but the hair and nails are still intact—partly intact. He looks so small, so helpless.

‘I can only give an estimate on time of death.’ Sally pauses, studying my face closely. ‘We’re looking at around six months ago.’

‘Cause of death?’

She shakes her head. ‘Can’t rule on that, I’m afraid.’

‘Is strangulation a possibility?’

‘Possible, yes. There’s no obvious sign of damage on the hyoid bone or the thyroid cartilage, but on victims this age those structures would be too soft to show damage. Without evidence of skin and muscle damage it’s impossible to conclusively rule out strangulation or to assign it as the cause of death.’

The hyoid bone is a U-shaped bone in the neck that becomes harder as we age. It bends rather than breaks under the force of strangulation up until roughly our thirties.

‘Of course, he could have drowned, been smothered by a pillow, the list goes on.’

I nod. ‘What else?’

‘Hair was tested for heavy metals and poisons—nothing out of the ordinary there. Dental records match Ted Strawasky and the age is right based on the cranial fusion.’

When we’re born, many of our skull bones are separated and joined by connective tissue. These gaps are called fontanels, with the last one closing up around eighteen months of age. Forensic pathologists and anthropologists can use the level of fusion in fontanel areas to ascertain the age of younger skeletons, along with a few other markers.

‘Any broken bones?’ I ask.

‘Wrist, but it was an old break. This was confirmed with the mother and I’ve seen the original X-rays, taken four years ago. They’re a match.’

I sigh, looking back at the mess of bones that used to be a boy.

‘Have you got a photo of him?’

‘Sure.’ Sally opens a file that rests on a trolley next to the body. She plucks out one picture and hands it to me.

I wince. ‘Oh, God, he does look like John.’

Sally takes the photo back quickly. ‘I’m sorry, honey.’

‘May I?’ I hold my hand out and Sally slips the photo back into my hand. I give in to the urge to run my fingers over the boy’s face.

After nearly a minute Sally asks if I’m okay.

‘Yeah.’ I hand her back the photograph and dig out the small photo of John I carry in my wallet, and then pass it to Sally. She’s probably seen his picture on television in the past couple of days anyway, but I still want her to see and hold a memory of John.

‘He looks like a happy kid.’

I nod. The photo was taken only a couple of weeks before his abduction, when his life was full of promise. And this photo really does seem to capture his personality—as much as any photograph can.

‘There is a resemblance between John and our current victim. You think this is our guy’s victim type?’ she asks. ‘Blonde hair, blue eyes and thinner, smaller frames?’

‘The four boys were all Caucasian, all with blonde or light brown hair, blue or green eyes and yes, all were around the fiftieth percentile for their age in terms of height.’ It’s hard to group John in with the other three victims like he’s nothing more than a statistic, a victim to be analysed, but I know there will be many times in the next few days and weeks when I will need to be objective. To get anywhere, I need to think like a profiler, not a sister.

Sally gauges the mood well, giving me a small, silent nod even though I know any kind of silence takes restraint on her part.

Eventually, I say, ‘Anything else?’

‘The boy was wearing underwear, it was still intact around his pelvic bones. Plain, dark blue from Target. It’s with forensics. Other than that…I’m afraid I’ve got nothing.’ She hangs her head. ‘I need a fresher body to do much more for you. Nothing from the nails, no signs of major violence or trauma before death or as cause of death…’

I sigh.

She puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. This one might be a waiting game.’

I wince again. Sally’s talking about waiting until the next body and hoping we find the victim soon after death. It’s one way to solve the crime, but waiting for another victim to be harmed…

I bite into my bottom lip. ‘They might find something on the underwear.’

‘True.’ She pauses. ‘Can I…buy you lunch? Or maybe a drink?’

I smile. ‘No. My parents are expecting me home.’ As it is, by the time I get home it will be a very late lunch but they said they’d wait.

She nods. ‘Sure.’

‘Do you mind giving me a few minutes alone?’

At first Sally seems confused. She’s used to this request from the deceased’s family, but Ted Strawasky’s not my family. ‘Okay…sure. Come to my office when you’re done and say goodbye?’

‘Of course.’

Once she’s gone, I sit in the cold silence for several minutes. I know what I have to do, but the thought of delving into this boy’s mind, or the perpetrator’s, sickens me.

Touching the gurney, I close my eyes and take deep, strong breaths. It doesn’t take long before the light-headedness hits me.

I’m lying on a bed, chained to its post at my ankles. It’s dark, but I can make out a small table and two buckets in the corner. I’m freezing, naked except for underwear.

A nearby door opens and closes and I hear whimpering a few metres away. But the footsteps come my way. Not me, please, not me.

I come to with a start, fear coursing through my body. Is that what John went through every day for nine months? My legs give way and I collapse to the floor. Sitting on the floor next to the gurney, tears stream down my face.

My poor John.

An extra layer of foundation hides my splotchy eyes. I need to appear professional to Victoria Police’s profiler, Lily Murphy. I want her to include me in the profiling process as much as possible, to bounce ideas around together. And she’s not going to do that if she sees me as the victim’s sister rather than a fellow profiler. Mind you, her choice of venues is a little unusual—a bar. I would like to be somewhere private, although Lily assured me the bar was off the beaten track; based on her detailed instructions it’s certainly hard to find.

I stop at the glass door labelled 112 and see Madame Brussels written in small script over the door. Melbourne has lots of hidden bars, and this is one of them. I bypass the lift and take the stairs to the second floor. Rounding the corner I see another doorway, directly opposite the elevator. Through the doorway is fake lawn and also a large balcony with spectacular views over Melbourne. Once I’m inside, the tennis theme becomes more obvious. The bar staff and two waiters are in old-fashioned tennis outfits, perhaps what you’d expect at an English country estate or elite tennis club in the sixties. The fake lawn covers the entire indoor area, with folding chairs, round tables and a couple of more comfortable-looking lounges. The bar is against the left-hand wall, and is surrounded by yesteryear tennis memorabilia. I scan the tables inside but there’s no sign of Lily, so I take a right onto the balcony. The tennis theme isn’t continued. Rather, outdoor tables and chairs are spotted throughout, with bar stools running along the outer edge so patrons can drink and look at the magnificent skyline, presently made even more dramatic by an incoming thunderstorm. I’ve always loved watching Melbourne’s spectacular summer storms.

Lily Murphy is sitting at a table for two in the far corner, sipping a glass of white wine and pushing buttons on her phone. Her short black hair is ruffled expertly and contrasts red lips and red nails against tanned skin. Her tailored dark grey suit is complemented by fashionable but low heels. She’s about six years older than me, but years of sun worshipping make it seem more like ten.

I’m moving towards her when she puts her phone down and takes a look around. She spots me instantly and stands up.

‘Sophie, hi.’

‘Hi, Lily.’

We give each other a quick peck on the cheek.

‘It’s good to see you again, but I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.’ Lily gives me a sympathetic smile.

‘Thanks.’

We both sit down.

‘Interesting place,’ I say.

‘Yes. I found it about a year ago.’ She leans in closer. ‘Not exactly the cheapest bar in Melbourne, but it’s great for one or two drinks.’

I nod, picking up the drinks menu and flicking through it. It’s not the most expensive bar I’ve been in, but it’s certainly not the cheapest either.

‘So, you arrived this morning?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘You must be exhausted. Jetlag is full on.’

‘It’s pretty bad, all right. Although I did manage a nap this afternoon.’ I always feel tired after a long flight, and prone to colds, dizziness and vagueness for a few days after. Then again, flying America to Australia is pretty much reversing your body clock, so it’s bound to play havoc. I can never understand the athletes who fly into Australia a few days before their event. I’d want at least a week, if not two, to fully acclimatise to the country’s weather and time zone.

‘And you saw Sally Burns today?’

‘Yeah. Around lunchtime.’

‘Anything?’

I shake my head. ‘I think the profile’s going to be the important thing on this one.’

She lets out a deep sigh. ‘If they follow the bloody thing.’

I’m about to respond when a waiter in smart-casual, three-quarter-length tweed pants and a white, firm-fitting V-neck T-shirt asks me what I’ll have to drink.

‘A glass of wine…’ I pick up the list again and flick to the page. ‘…Diamond Valley Chardonnay, thanks.’

‘Coming right up.’

I turn back to Lily. ‘So, still not much respect for profiling in the Vic Police?’

‘Not really.’ She takes a sip of wine. ‘Don’t know if there ever will be.’ A deep sigh. ‘What about the States?’

‘Full spectrum. Some cops swear by it, others think it’s crap; that it’s only for TV shows and thriller books. But it’s certainly used a lot more in America than here. Though the population difference makes it a more useful tool in the US.’

She nods. ‘Wish I had dual citizenship.’

One of the basic FBI entry requirements is American citizenship. ‘I’m lucky, all right.’ I pause for a few seconds. ‘But you have been asked to profile this case. You’re in the loop.’

‘Don’t know about in the loop, but I’ve been asked to provide a psychological offender profile and oversee a geographical profile too.’

‘Great. Maybe Faulkner knows what he’s doing after all.’

Lily stifles a laugh mid-sip and just manages not to spray the table with white wine. ‘I forgot about you two.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Don’t think he’ll ever forgive me for making Homicide before him.’

‘Probably not. Lucky you’re not still in it though, huh?’

‘That would be torture.’

Another pause.

‘Bet your parents are glad to have you here.’ Her voice is gentle.

‘Yes.’ Is it my imagination or is Lily avoiding the real topic I came to discuss? The killer. I dive right in. ‘So, Ted Strawasky…and the others. What are your thoughts on it at the moment?’ I could tell her my thoughts, but I don’t want to railroad her. Lily and I were friends and she knew of my interest in profiling and helped to nurture that interest, but there was never going to be room for two profilers in Victoria, and we both knew it. If it hadn’t been for the FBI and Andy Rivers’ job offer, my career choices would have been limited: accept my role as a cop until Lily resigned or retired, rally for her job going head-to-head against her, or move interstate. And the chance of an interstate move was remote, given only New South Wales and South Australia employ profilers, making only three such positions for the whole of Australia.

It all worked out in the end, though.

‘You really want to do this?’

I nod.

‘I don’t know, Soph. I don’t think it’s good for you…emotionally.’

‘Come on, Lily. I’m fine. And I need to do this.’

‘Mmm…’ She looks at me hard. ‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ Another silence, but then she dives in. ‘My thoughts…’ She takes another sip of wine. ‘They’re briefing me fully tomorrow morning, but I’ve had a quick look at the most recent file, Ted Strawasky, and discussed the previous victims with Detective Brad Shaw.’

She’s interrupted by the waiter serving my Chardonnay. Once he’s gone, she continues. ‘I think we are looking at the same killer. In many ways he’s the classic preferential paedophile, of the sadistic type. Except that he keeps the boys for so long and dumps the bodies in their underwear.’

I nod my head in agreement. Child molesters are usually classified as either “situational” or “preferential”. Situational offenders don’t have an exclusive and true sexual interest in children—rather they target children and other “easy” targets like the elderly or sick. Sometimes a stressor makes them turn to children as temporary sexual objects, because they are less threatening, and often a situational child abuser is in a long-term relationship. Other types of situational child molesters are mentally impaired or morally indiscriminate.

On the other hand, preferential offenders actually prefer children and are generally not interested in sexual encounters with adults. They look at children through distorted eyes as providers of pleasure, and it’s unlikely they’re in any type of adult relationship.

The sadistic paedophile is intent on harming his victims physically. Typically the victim is a stranger who the paedophile stalks, rather than enticing or seducing, and the child usually dies during the sexual attack or directly afterwards.

‘Keeping them for so long suggests a relationship substitute,’ I say. ‘He must nurture them or care for them to some extent.’ As the words leave my mouth I’m reminded of the vision I had—those boys were not being cared for or nurtured. Obviously they were fed and the buckets in the corner could have been used as toilets or washbasins, but that’s basic survival not “caring” in the true sense of the word. Still, for a sadistic paedophile, not killing them immediately is caring. But perhaps the most important part of my vision was that there seemed to be more than one boy being held at a time. How am I going to back up that possibility?

‘A lover of children.’ Lily shudders at her reference to one definition of a paedophile. The description given by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a little more precise: “the acts or fantasy of engaging in sexual activity with pre-pubertal children as a repeatedly preferred or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement”.

‘Certainly when you think about the type of person we’re dealing with there is a level of care there. The bodies don’t show extreme violence…no broken bones or other signs on the bones of prolonged violence. A sadistic personality type usually tortures his victims physically as well as sexually.’

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘but our guy still kills them.’

Most criminal psychology texts propose that only sadistic child molesters kill. ‘Is it possible we’re dealing with two killers?’ I say. ‘One who chooses and abducts the boys, and one who protects them for months on end until eventually the sadistic personality type dominates the protector and kills the boy?’

Lily scrunches up her face. ‘Could be. It might explain the underwear too.’

‘The second offender covers them up to restore the boys’ modesty or to hide what the dominant person has done?’

‘Uh huh.’

Problem with that is the boy I saw in my vision was wearing underwear while he was being held captive—it wasn’t a post-mortem action. And he was freezing. Keeping them in only their underwear, even during the colder months and nights, is a form of torture that would fit with a sadistic offender. But I can’t tell Lily any of this.

She stares at the skyline in contemplation, taking a few sips of wine. ‘There’s also no mutilation, that we know of.’

‘No.’ Sadistic offenders often decapitate the body or in the case of male victims will actually cut off the victim’s penis and insert it into their anus or mouth. Problem is, with only bones it’s possible the body was defiled in this way. Decapitation is easy to see, but removal of soft tissue, which then decomposes completely, isn’t. Sally’s right, a body that hasn’t decomposed fully sure would help us. Then again, Cameron Howell’s body was found six weeks after death, and there was no evidence of soft tissue damage there.

I sit in silence for several seconds, oddly managing to appreciate the Aussie wine despite the gruesome topic. Maybe having another profiling professional to talk with helps me normalise the experience. It’s certainly helping my objectivity. ‘On the plus side, sadistic paedophiles are more likely to have some sort of criminal record.’

Lily nods. ‘A sociopath prone to aggressive and antisocial behaviour, and therefore on our database somewhere.’ She swirls the few mouthfuls of white wine left in her glass. ‘What if we had two offenders back in the seventies and then the sadistic personality type died?’ She stops swirling and leans forward. ‘The abductions cease, but then something happened recently to trigger the more submissive personality into action.’

‘And he starts playing both roles in the dynamic.’ I nod. ‘I like it as a theory to explain the time lag between vics.’

‘So do I.’ Lily takes a breath. ‘It’s also possible the submissive found a new partner; another dominant personality type who would continue the abduction and murder cycle with him. The submissive could have guided him, so every element of the crimes from the seventies is replicated.’

I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time one person in a submissive-dominant crime partnership has been replaced.’ It’s usually the dominant personality seeking out a replacement, but there’s no reason it couldn’t happen the other way around.

‘No.’

‘And a submissive personality type could easily take thirty years to find a suitable partner. They’re not going to be as aggressive in their search as a dominant person would be.’

Lily nods and I take a large sip of Chardonnay. ‘Do you think the perp, or perps, might hold more than one boy at a time?’

She leans back in her chair. ‘The times of death are well spaced out. No overlap.’

I purse my lips together. ‘For the victims we know of. There could be others.’

‘True…I guess it’s impossible to say, then.’

Problem is, I know there is victim overlap, but I can’t do anything more than raise it as a possibility—a possibility we can revisit later.

I play with the stem of my glass. ‘I could help, you know.’

‘Help? I think I’m capable enough, thanks.’

I’m a little thrown by Lily’s sudden defensiveness. One minute we’re brainstorming and the next she’s taking offence at an offer to help. Maybe the Force has been giving her a harder time than even she’s admitting.

‘Of course you are, Lily. You gave me my start and I’ll always remember that.’ Her face relaxes slightly so I keep going. ‘I know you’re used to working solo, but there are benefits in working together. We did it a lot in Quantico.’

Her lips purse. ‘This isn’t Quantico.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying. Besides, you were trained out of Quantico, with the FBI’s long-distance course. You respect the Bureau’s knowledge and methods, yes?’

She shrugs. ‘Yes. But they make mistakes and there are other people, other countries, doing great work in profiling.’

‘I know.’ I sit for a bit, trying to think what I can say to salvage the situation. Faulkner’s already cut me off from the homicide cops, I can’t afford to be cut off from Lily, too. She’s my only way in now. Sally’s been great, but there’s only so much information I can glean from her work.

I put my hand on Lily’s arm. ‘Lily, you’ve always been my mentor and if it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have gotten into the Bureau. I know what great work you do for this state even if the rest of your colleagues don’t.’

She looks down. ‘I’m sorry…’ She blows out a forceful breath. ‘It’s been a bad day…a bad year.’ She takes the last of her wine in one large gulp.

‘We can bounce ideas off one another,’ I say, ‘discuss similar cases here and in the States. And no one has to know. Believe me, I’m more than happy to keep off Faulkner’s radar, that’s for sure.’

‘I don’t know, Soph. I’m still not convinced this is the best thing—for you.’

‘Come on, Lily. You can keep an eye on me.’

Another long pause before she gives me a little smile. ‘Okay. But it’ll have to be real unofficial. You’re not even a cop here any more, let alone part of the Vic Police. This could get me into some deep shit.’

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.’

She nods. ‘I still need to sit down with all the case files and that’s on my list for tomorrow. Chances are I’ll see something more significant then.’

I resist the urge to tell Lily that I’ve got the case files for the first three victims…and that after all these years I know there’s nothing there that would add to our discussion or direct an offender profile in another direction. That I’m praying Ted Strawasky holds the key.

Thin white walls create a makeshift room, with old and stained carpet tiles on the floor, a plain wooden bed with thin mattress, a harsh fluorescent light and two buckets.

The boy wakes up, his head thumping. He instinctively rubs his eyes and then squints to get his bearings. A far wall has one window, but it’s boarded up from the outside so only a few slivers of natural light break through the darkness.

Rain falls heavily and loudly above him, the sound of plump rain drops on a corrugated steel roof.

‘Hello?’ His voice is hoarse and frail.

The only response is footsteps—large, heavy footsteps coming towards the locked door.

Chapter 5

I wait until 9am, assuming the peak-hour rush would have subsided, before heading outside with my briefcase to Mum’s car.

‘We’re ready.’

Looking up, I thump my head on the car’s doorframe, briefcase still in hand. Mum and Dad are standing at the front of the car. They’re dressed casually, like they’re staying in for the day, however, Mum’s handbag tells the real story. There was no mention of this at breakfast—strategy is in force.

Once I’ve deposited my briefcase on the floor of the front passenger side I stand back up and lean on the doorframe. I make direct eye contact with them both. ‘I’m going by myself.’

Mum shakes her head and Dad gives a little shrug.

‘Guys, I’m working.’

Mum moves closer. ‘No, you’re not, Sophie. This is about John, about us. We’re coming. And you need our support, even if you don’t realise it.’

‘I’m fine, Mum. Honestly.’

I look to Dad for help, but instead he holds out one hand. ‘I’m driving.’

‘What?’

He jiggles his hand expectantly. ‘Come on, hand them over. Like your mum says, you need our support.’ His eyes flick to Mum. ‘Besides, you’re still jetlagged and it’s a long drive.’

‘I really don’t need you guys to hold my hand. And Euroa’s only a couple of hours’ drive.’

Another shrug. ‘Whatever. Hand ’em over.’ Dad’s insistent and a look back at Mum reveals nothing but resolve. She’s hard enough to fight when it’s two against one in my favour, let alone when Dad’s in her corner.

I hand the keys to Dad. ‘Don’t suppose you guys will wait in the car?’

Dad chuckles and Mum gives me a quick frown before moving into the front seat.

Ugh…relegated to the back seat, too. On the plus side, I might be able to get some work done. I’ve never really suffered from motion sickness, so reading and working should be a breeze in the back seat…time to work on the Bureau profiles.

We’ve only been on the road for about ten minutes when my mobile rings—private number. That could mean anything, but I’m hoping it’s Darren.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, honey.’

‘Hi, Darren.’ I spoke to Darren twenty-four hours ago, soon after I landed, but it’s still nice to hear his voice.

‘How’d you go yesterday?’

‘Good and bad, I guess. The police don’t want me to get involved, but I’ve got enough contacts and friends here that it looks like I’ll be able to work around that.’ I look out to get my bearings…corner of Burke and Doncaster Roads. ‘I saw the remains of the recent victim yesterday and spoke to the profiler too. She’s agreed to work with me, unofficially.’

‘That’s great, honey.’ A pause. ‘You up to it?’

‘I think it’s the only way I’ll stay sane over here. I can’t just sit at home waiting for the cops to call with news.’

‘It goes against human nature. Not to mention your personality.’

‘Uh huh.’

Darren and I witness the effects of crime and murder on loved ones on a regular basis. Although everyone’s different, it’s common for relatives to feel the need to get involved somehow. They’ll drive around for hours looking for their missing child—it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, literally, but they can’t sit at home doing nothing.

‘I’ve got some bad news on this end. One of the other detectives is on vacation for another week and the captain says he can’t spare me.’

‘Oh, sweetie.’ I can’t keep the disappointment from my voice.

‘I know. I know, and I’m sorry. I went in hard, but he wouldn’t budge. At least you’ve got your folks.’

‘For better or worse.’

Darren chuckles. ‘You’ve only been there one day.’

‘We’re driving up to Euroa at the moment to see the mother of the latest victim. Mum and Dad too.’ I raise my voice. ‘Apparently I need the support.’

Darren laughs again. ‘Maybe you do.’ He takes a breath. ‘And maybe they need this as much as you.’

I grimace. I hate it when other people can see what’s right in front of me. Mum needs to see this woman, hear about her son. I should have realised that.

‘I think you might be right,’ I concede.

‘So Euroa? That near Melbourne? Near Shepparton?’

‘It’s about one-hundred and fifty kilometres north of Melbourne, and Shepparton’s another fifty kilometres further on.’

‘Miles?’

‘Sorry…’ I do a rough calculation in my head. ‘About one-twenty from Melbourne and another thirty on to Shepparton.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got a big day ahead of you. It’s probably just as well your folks can help with the driving, especially when you’re jetlagged.’

I scrunch up my face. ‘Did you already speak to my dad this morning?’

Darren laughs again. ‘That bad, huh?’

‘Almost word-for-word.’

‘Well, you know what they say…great minds.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

A little pause, then Darren says softy, ‘So, tell me about yesterday.’

I take Darren through my three major meetings—Detective Brad Shaw, Sally Burns and Lily Murphy.

‘Sounds like a busy few hours.’

‘Yeah. And then last night I rang Mrs Strawasky, the mother of the most recent vic, and organised to see her this morning.’

‘Did you tell her who you were?’

‘You mean John?’ I catch myself biting my lip—just saying John’s name is difficult.

‘Uh huh.’

‘No. Just said I was a profiler and needed to talk to her about the case.’

‘Impersonating a police officer?’ Darren’s tone is serious.

‘I never said I was a profiler for the Victoria Police, just that I was a profiler.’

‘Mmm…guess you’re in the clear legally, but you’ll be leaving some pissed-off cops in your wake.’

‘That, I can handle.’

Silence, then, ‘So will you tell her about John?’

I sigh. ‘I really don’t know. Mum and Dad’s presence may force my hand.’

Mum turns around from the front seat and raises an eyebrow at me. She could be listening intentionally into the conversation, but at the same time it’s almost impossible to tune out when someone’s right next to you. I wound up listening to half a domestic for most of the train trip from Parliament Station to Camberwell last night.

‘You might find your folks are a help rather than a hindrance.’

‘Mmm…we’ll see.’

‘Anything else planned for the day?’

‘I’m meeting Lily Murphy at her house tonight. She’s got a briefing with Homicide this morning and will then spend all day going over the files. I need to stay under the radar, so I won’t be going into her office.’

‘Fair enough. She’s gotta protect her job.’

‘I know. I just hope we’re up to the challenge.’

‘You will be.’

I bite into my lip again. ‘I don’t know, Darren. Lily’s probably only ever profiled two, maybe three paedophiles of this nature and my track record’s not exactly set, either.’ Thankfully.

‘You’ll do great.’ Darren’s silent for a bit. ‘It’s not pretty, though.’ Barely checked anger seeps through his voice, and that makes me feel incredibly glad that I have him to talk to about all of this.

We pull off the Hume Highway at the Euroa exit. It’s only three kilometres before Dad takes a left into the township.

‘Is this the way?’

Dad shakes his head. ‘No, but what are you going to do if Mrs Strawasky’s only got instant?’

I smile. ‘You know me too well, Dad.’

He gives me a grin in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Well, I could use the coffee too. And a stretch.’

‘Good idea, Bob.’

I look at my watch—11.10am. ‘We’ll have to be quick. I said we’d be there late morning.’

Dad nods. ‘And soon it will be afternoon.’ He slows down. ‘Bakery, supermarket, antiques…’ Dad reels off the shops as we crawl up the main street.

‘There’s a café on the left here,’ Mum says. ‘And another one a few doors down.’

‘Nope, I’ve spotted our place.’ Dad swings to the right and parks in one of the marked ninety-degree spaces, right in front of a chocolate shop-café hybrid.

‘Perfect, Bob. I should be able to get a nice box of chocolates for Mrs Strawasky here.’

‘A box of chocolates, Mum?’

She turns around. ‘Her neighbours, relatives and friends will bring her food, and lots of it. But there’ll be times when she can’t face food. One or two chocolates, on the other hand, will keep her energy up a little, and give her some form of comfort.’

Although Mum’s tone is pleasant and matter-of-fact, I feel like I’ve been put in my place. Did people bring her chocolates? Is that what got her through the first few days? I still can’t remember any of it. It’s like it all happened to someone else.

‘Sorry, Mum. You’re right, that does sound perfect.’

We tumble out of the car, and I’m instantly hit by the dry heat. It’s going to be a dry, hot summer if it’s like this in November. It’s been just over two hours, and we’re all stiff. After a few instinctive stretches, we head into the small shop. Inside, there are chairs and tables for about twelve people, with another six stools along a window bench. A lady in her late fifties to early sixties, dressed in layers of clothing similar in style to Sally Burns, stands behind the counter. She wears her long grey hair piled into a bun, with an intricate system of diamante pins.

‘Morning,’ she says in a sing-song voice, filled with genuine high spirits and not merely a shopkeeper’s mask. ‘Long drive?’

‘That obvious, huh?’ Mum smiles and moves towards a display with pre-boxed chocolates.

‘I saw you stretching outside. Melbourne?’

‘Uh huh.’ Dad makes a beeline for the counter. ‘Do you do take-aways?’

‘Sure. What can I get you?’

I order a soy latte with the addition of some cold milk, Dad gets a long black, and Mum goes for her usual cappuccino. After looking at a few sweet options, Dad also asks for three chocolate-chip cookies.

While the coffees are being made, Mum looks at the boxed chocolates. I check out the individual gourmet chocolates for sale, and Dad leans on the counter making small talk with the woman. The little treats—truffles, soft centres, hard centres, nougats—all look gorgeous, but they’re also expensive, like most chocolates that are individually sold.

Back in the car, Dad takes a large sip of his coffee. It must be boiling hot, but Dad’s always had a high tolerance for hot drinks and food, unlike me. ‘So, what’s the plan?’ he asks between steamy slurps.

‘I go in. You guys wait in the car.’

Mum laughs. ‘Nice try, darling.’

I sigh. ‘It was worth a shot.’ Besides, I think Mum does need this. She genuinely wants to be there for Ted Strawasky’s mother and she must also be hoping Mrs Strawasky or her dead son will help me bring John’s killer to justice. Whether she wants that justice for me or for her is another thing.

‘From what you said last night, you’re in a tough position here, right?’ Dad takes another sip.

‘Yup.’

‘We should tell this woman the truth. Our personal connection to her son’s murder.’

‘I agree with your father. Honesty is always the best policy.’

I gingerly try my coffee. After a sip at the perfect temperature I say, ‘I need to approach this professionally. I need information as a profiler.’

‘Of course, darling.’ Dad starts the car. ‘So you tell Mrs Strawasky you’re an off-duty profiler whose brother was killed by this bastard thirty years ago.’

I wince, still perhaps delusional in my hope, my belief, that I can be an objective professional talking to the woman whose son was murdered. But no matter how hard I try to convince myself, we’re talking about the same man who killed my brother. Even if he was the submissive partner back then, this man had a direct hand in John’s murder. In that instant of realisation I’m swallowed up by pure vengeance. I don’t just want the monster dead; I want to kill him myself.

Mrs Strawasky lives on a large, though suburban-looking, block about one kilometre west of the main township. The house is bluestone, rather than the more traditional country-style weatherboard, and a yellow, waist-high picket fence borders the property’s front yard. Roses are evenly spaced along the fence-line, although they won’t be winning any botanical awards—rather they look thirsty and in need of a good pruning. An ornate archway curves up from the middle of the fence, with a wrought-iron gate that doesn’t match the fence. Original perhaps? Part of the front garden is hidden by a large For Sale sign. Something about the house makes me think it was once a bluestone shop, which was converted to a residence some time ago. We quickly finish our coffees and biscuits before getting out of the car.

Opening the wrought-iron gate, I notice it creaks loudly. Did the killer manage to open the gate unheard? It was the middle of the night, so it’s possible; and certainly more likely than jumping the fence, which is high enough that even someone of Dad’s height couldn’t scissor their legs over it. There may also be a back entrance that’s more private, but if not, the point of entry must have been here. From here he’d have easy access to both sides of the house and several windows, with at least six metres between the house and neighbouring fences on either side.

I lead the way down a bricked path and up two steps onto a rickety wooden porch. There’s a small, actual bell mounted on the wall next to the door, so I ring it a couple of times. It gives a melodic jingle and after about thirty seconds a small woman in her mid-thirties answers the door. Her long black hair is a little haphazard and in need of a cut, but you hardly notice it because of stunningly high and pronounced cheekbones, complemented by dark blue eyes and full red lips. She’s about five-three, slim but with an oversized bust, which is emphasised by tight jeans and a white figure-hugging T-shirt.

‘Mrs Strawasky?’

‘No. I’m her sister, Rose. You the police?’ She looks behind me, to Mum and Dad. We don’t look like the average cop contingent.

‘I spoke to your sister last night. My name’s Sophie Anderson and I’m a profiler.’

She shrugs, like it’s all double Dutch to her. ‘Come in.’ She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why she has to tell the same story over and over. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing, huh? Our tax dollars hard at work.’

‘Actually, it’s not quite like that, Rose.’ Dad extends his hand. ‘Bob Anderson. I’m Sophie’s father and this is my wife, Jan.’

Rose knits her eyebrows together. ‘A family affair?’

‘Perhaps if we can all sit down?’ Mum offers Rose one of her most charming smiles. ‘With your sister? Then we can explain everything.’

Rose hesitates for a few seconds. ‘Look, Leah’s been through hell. Who are you people and what do you want?’

Mum takes Rose’s arm. ‘Please, I know exactly what your sister’s going through. I promise it’ll all make sense. Just give us a few minutes.’

Rose can see the pain and honesty in Mum’s eyes. ‘All right, but this better be good.’ She shows us into a living room while she moves towards the back of the house. ‘I’ll go get Leah.’

‘The protective sister,’ Dad says quietly once she’s out of earshot.

I nod. ‘But Mum got through the guard dog, no problem.’ During a tragedy like this families and friends form layers of protection. In fact, I was surprised to talk directly to Mrs Strawasky last night—she actually answered her own phone. Of course, the media is a little less intrusive here than it is in the States.

The sisters enter and we all stand up. Leah Strawasky is a few inches taller than her sister but sports the same facial bone structure, though made even more prominent by her shorter black hair. She’s more casually dressed in cargo pants and a loose T-shirt, and carries a few more kilograms of weight than her sister.

‘Mrs Strawasky, we spoke on the phone last night.’ I extend my hand. ‘Sophie Anderson.’

‘Yes, that’s right. And please, call me Leah.’ Lines are etched into the skin around her eyes, like perhaps she’s a smoker or has spent a lot of time outdoors. Or it could just be the events of the past few days aging her.

I give her a smile. ‘And these are my parents, Bob and Jan Anderson.’

Leah shakes their hands but she’s not really with us, hasn’t come up with the natural question—why are a profiler’s parents tagging along to an interview?

‘Please, sit,’ she manages.

We sit back down and Rose and Leah take a seat in the sofa opposite us.

Leah squints a little, like she’s got a bad headache. ‘You’re a profiler? For the Victoria Police?’

Rose’s gaze hardens a little, waiting for the promised explanation.

‘I am a profiler, but I don’t work for the Victoria Police. Not any more at least.’

Leah and Rose stare at me expectantly for a few beats before Rose says. ‘The detectives said they were calling in a profiler. Is that you?’

‘No. I used to work in Vic Police’s Homicide Department, but then I relocated to the US, where I currently work as a profiler for the FBI.’ I know I should just be forthright, rather than taking part in the guessing game, but I can’t bring myself to say it…to tell them about John.

‘The FBI? I don’t understand.’ Rose shakes her head. ‘And to be honest, we don’t have the energy for this.’ She shuffles forward on the couch, like she’s about to stand up—and probably ask us to leave.

‘Oh, Soph, stop pussy-footing around, darling.’ Mum leans forward and addresses Leah. ‘The man who took your son,’ she takes a deep breath, ‘who killed him, has been linked to three murders thirty years ago.’

‘We know all this,’ Rose interrupts, probably thinking she’d let us slip through her guard too easily.

Mum nods. ‘The third victim that they know of…’ She takes a deep breath. ‘He was our son, John. Sophie’s come back to help find John’s killer, to find the man who killed your son and ours.’

Rose’s mouth is slightly open and Leah sits with her face frozen for a few seconds before she drops her head into her hands and starts crying, guttural sobs of pain. It’s just what I feel like doing and seeing Leah’s grief pulls the lump in my throat higher.

Rose immediately starts stroking Leah’s head, and Mum’s soon at her side, kneeling down next to her and rubbing her hand up and down Leah’s arm.

‘That’s right, my dear,’ Mum says softly. ‘Let it all out.’

I fight back the tears, still unwilling to give in, but it’s not long before slow tears start. They’re not the raspy tears of Leah’s, they’re tears of old, repressed pain.

Mum puts her head in closer to Leah. ‘I know what it’s like, sweetie. You’ll never be the same again, but the pain will ease eventually.’

Dad grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze, but I can’t bear to look at him. I had always presumed Mum’s pain has eased, but we’ve never spoken about it. I’ve never asked.

Mum keeps running her hand up and down Leah’s arm and after several minutes the sobs start to ease a little.

Eventually Leah looks up at me, her face blotchy and nose running. ‘Can you find him? Can you get the…thing that did this?’ Her voice is gravelly—hoarse from crying and harsh with anger.

I take a deep breath and wipe away a stray tear. ‘That’s the plan.’

She nods, seeming to understand that while I didn’t and can’t say yes, I’m in this one-hundred percent.

‘Sophie’s extremely good at what she does, Leah.’ Mum’s voice is soothing, the voice of a mother comforting a child, and apparently just what Leah needs. ‘If anyone can do it, Sophie can. She helps people like you…and me…every day.’

Fresh tears well up at the corners of my eyes and I wipe them away before they can escape.

Leah nods and sits back, dabbing her face with her hand before leaning forward and grabbing a handful of tissues from a box on the coffee table. She takes a couple of minutes to compose herself, before meeting my gaze. ‘What do you need?’

‘Everything you’ve given the police and more. My presence here is unofficial and for a variety of reasons I’m not particularly welcome.’

Rose shakes her head. ‘Bureaucrats.’

I give a little shrug. ‘What can you do? I’m not on the Force, not even based in Australia any more. Luckily, I’ve still got friends here, people willing to talk to me and help me, under the radar. Yesterday I spoke to Detective Brad Shaw, but his hands are tied when it comes to my involvement. However, I did get a lot of information from the Coroner’s Office and I will be working with the official profiler on this case, Lily Murphy.’

Rose and Leah both absorb the information and Mum takes the opportunity to move back to the sofa.

‘Do you know much about profiling?’ I ask.

Rose shrugs. ‘I watch Criminal Minds. Does that count?’

‘Yeah, it’s similar. The Bureau doesn’t have a jet that the BAU team flies around in, but the program shows you the general gist of profiling and how it can help to catch an offender. Although, it’s not as easy or as fast as it is on TV.’

They nod for me to continue.

‘My starting point will be the five major profiling inputs.’ I’m immediately back in my comfort zone, back to the objective profiler. ‘First off, the crime scene. In your son’s case, this house and where they found his body. Then the victimology, which is information about Ted and the other victims that may tell us why the perpetrator chose them. Third, forensic information, although that’s scant in this case. Fourth, the preliminary police report, and, lastly, the photos.’ I’m hoping I’ll have access to all this information via Lily Murphy, but I’ll know for sure tonight. ‘Once I’ve gone through all that information, I’ll start to come up with theories on the crime and perpetrator, before actually reconstructing the crime, focusing on the interaction between the victim and perp. Then it’ll be time to draft the profile.’

‘Sounds complicated.’

I shrug. ‘Mostly it’s just time consuming.’ I grab a pen and notebook from my briefcase and open it, ready to start writing. ‘For now, I need you to tell me about John.’ I look up at Leah and notice the strange, frozen looks on everyone’s faces. ‘What?’

Dad rests his hand on my shoulder. ‘You said John, not Ted.’

I scrunch my face up. ‘Really?’

Everyone nods.

I force a smile. ‘Sorry…Ted.’ After a moment, I plough on. ‘He was fourteen years old when he disappeared?’

‘That’s right. It was only a month after he’d turned fourteen. But he was young for his age, mentally and physically.’ She shakes her head. ‘Euroa’s a small, farm town. He would have chatted to an older guy without thinking twice about it.’

I nod. ‘Stranger danger isn’t as applicable out here. We used to live in Shepparton…we understand that.’

She rubs her hands together. ‘Maybe I should have told him to be more careful. To always be wary of strangers.’

‘Even though I haven’t drafted a profile, at this stage I believe the type of man who took Ted isn’t the sort of…’ I stop myself from saying paedophile. ‘…offender who gets to know his victims over time or lures them with the promise of sweets, or, in the case of boys this age, cigarettes or alcohol. I doubt Ted ever spoke to this man.’

She nods, her guilt appeased a little. There are all sorts of ways we can make our kids more street savvy and help protect them, but it’s hard to guard against something as random as a sadistic paedophile abducting a boy from his home and then killing him.

‘How was his mood in the few weeks prior to his abduction?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘He hadn’t been the same since his father left.’ She takes a deep breath and blows it out. ‘I came home from work one day and there was a note on the hall table. Dear Leah, It’s not working with us and I’ve met someone else. I’ve taken all my things and am moving to Brisbane. I will send money and divorce papers soon. Sorry. Rod.’ She recites it off by heart.

‘Charming,’ Mum says. ‘And he left you with a teenage son.’

A son who was taken away from her eight weeks later. And for six agonising months she had no idea if he was alive or dead. This woman’s been through more in the past eight months than any person should have to bear.

‘Uh huh.’ Her voice is monotone, her face flat.

Mum stands and gives Leah’s arm another maternal stroke. ‘How about a cup of tea or coffee?’

Rose stands up. ‘I was just boiling the kettle when you arrived. Come this way.’

Mum doesn’t ask what Dad and I want—she knows we’ll have coffee if it’s not instant, otherwise tea.

‘So how did Ted respond to his father leaving?’

‘At first he was quiet, sullen even. Then he turned on me, blamed me. Said I was a bad wife and that’s why Rod had left us.’ She dabs at a few tears. ‘And then he started getting into trouble. First his teacher called to say he’d been skipping classes and that his work was suffering. Then two weeks later he had a fight with a kid at school and was sent home with a black eye and was suspended for a week. But he would have been better off at school. I was working, trying to make enough money to keep this place…’ she glances around her living room. ‘And he was at home or hanging out in the streets doing God knows what.’ She sighs. ‘I even searched his room once for drugs, but I don’t think it was that. I guess he hit the teenage rebellion stage with a vengeance once his dad was gone.’

‘Did you show him the letter?’

‘Not at first, no. But he kept badgering me about it. Asked me exactly what Rod said, and wouldn’t believe me when I told him. Eventually I showed it to him, but I think it made things worse. You see, the letter didn’t even mention Ted. Not even a say goodbye to Ted for me—nothing. Rod did call on his birthday, though. At least he remembered that.’

I nod. ‘So it’s fair to say that Ted was upset and angry around that time?’

‘I guess, yes. But you don’t think that had anything to do with it, do you?’

‘Probably not. But it’s important to find out everything we can, and then compare that information with what we know about the other victims. Any similarities between the victims could give us a lead.’

She gulps and looks at Dad. ‘Was your son…was he upset or angry just before?’

I turn to Dad. I’d never thought to ask—I certainly don’t remember John being anything but his usual happy self, but then again I don’t remember much from that age.

‘No. If anything, the opposite.’ Dad smiles, the memory warming him. ‘He’d just qualified for a big swim meet in Melbourne.’

That’s right…I’d forgotten all about that. A few days before his abduction he’d won a race in Bendigo and was an automatic qualifier for the big Melbourne meet.

‘Did Ted swim?’ I ask, thinking of a possible connection.

‘No. He used to run, one-hundred metres, but he quit training a couple of weeks after Rod left.’

I nod and move us on. ‘The night he disappeared…did you hear anything?’

‘I’ve been over and over that night so many times. If I’d heard something, I’m sure I would have remembered it.’

‘The front gate creaks. Was it like that back in February?’

‘Yes, but probably not as bad.’ She folds her legs up underneath her on the couch. ‘Rod used to keep it oiled and I’m afraid I’ve let it slip.’

‘So it’s possible he could have come in the front gate and then entered via an open window?’

‘I guess. Like I told the cops, I don’t remember if the windows were open or not, but it was a warm night.’

‘Okay.’

Mum arrives carrying a tray with a large pot of tea and five cups. Rose is in tow, with a plate of Tim Tams and homemade lemon slice. Probably both gifts from concerned friends and neighbours.

Mum pours the tea and we all help ourselves to milk and sugar. Once I’ve taken a sip, I ask if Leah had any break-ins in the twelve months prior to Ted’s disappearance.

‘No. Unless they didn’t take anything.’

Which is a possibility if our guy did a “dry run”, perhaps during the day when Ted was at school, or at least out, and Leah was at work.

‘Now, I know I said that the attacker is probably a stranger to you, but I need to double check. Is there anyone in your lives who showed extra attention to Ted? Or who made you feel uncomfortable in any way?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. And I don’t think whoever did this is a local. He’s not one of us.’

A common reaction—one that’s often wrong, with the most seemingly trustworthy and innocent of men being guilty of horrible crimes.

‘Take me through the night he went missing.’ I take the smallest piece of lemon slice from the plate. A chocolate biscuit, lemon slice and no jog this morning…I mustn’t be myself.

‘It was a normal night—well, normal for after Rod left. We used to all watch TV together at night or play board games, but not in the last few weeks before…’ She stares off into the distance for a few seconds, before coming back to the conversation. ‘We had dinner around seven, and then Ted went up to his room. I told him he had to do an hour’s homework before he could switch on the TV. I checked on him a couple of times, and he was at his desk. And then around eight-thirty, I took up a drink and told him he could watch TV for an hour. When I checked on him at nine-thirty, he was in bed and the light was off. I hit the sack around eleven. The next morning I went in to wake him and…’ More tears flow. Eventually she sobs, ‘He wasn’t there.’

I wait for a few minutes, until her crying subsides before I resume questioning. ‘And I believe his backpack was missing?’

‘Yes. But nothing else. No clothes that I could find. That’s why I didn’t think he’d run away, even though the police thought he had.’ She gives a little sniff and holds on tightly to her cup of tea.

‘What about a computer? Did he have one?’

‘Yes. The coppers took it away a couple of days ago. I hadn’t touched it since he disappeared.’

‘That’s good, Leah. They might find something.’

‘You think this man contacted Ted online?’ She refuses the Tim Tam and lemon slice that Rose hands her but manages a sip of tea.

‘It’s hard to say.’ I drain my cup. ‘It is a common way for predators to find young boys and girls.’

‘What about thirty years ago?’

Mum and Dad both look at me, ready for my response. ‘Perpetrators have definitely been known to update their methods. Obviously that’s not how he found the boys in the seventies, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a factor in Ted’s case.’

She nods. ‘I see.’

I wait for a few seconds, then lean forward to put my empty cup on the coffee table. ‘I’d like to take a look around. In Ted’s room, but also around the house to see what the access is like.’

‘I…I don’t want to go into Ted’s room.’ Leah’s hands shake a little, sending her cup wobbling from side to side. ‘And I don’t want to look around the house thinking of how some animal got to my baby.’

‘It’s okay. I can find my own way, if you don’t mind. It’ll give me a good feel of the house, as well.’

She nods, her relief evident. ‘Ted’s room is the second door on the left down the hall.’

‘Thanks.’

I leave my parents with Rose and Leah, while I start making my way through the house, trying to see it through the killer’s eyes. A number of windows would have provided easy access, if they’d been unlocked or open, with the flywires easily removed. The house is lived in, but homey, with lots of photos of a young, seemingly happy family. Ted’s bedroom looks untouched, but that’s normal when a child disappears or is killed—the room becomes a shrine. The room’s tidy and dust-free, but other than that looks like a normal boy’s bedroom: posters, a desk, a bookshelf. Nothing remarkable in either the house or Ted’s bedroom, nothing obvious that can help me.

But maybe a vision can. Although I feel like I’m intruding on Ted’s space, I sit on his bed and concentrate on my breathing—deep breaths in and out.

Ted’s asleep in bed and a figure leans over him.

I jolt out of the vision quickly, feeling disorientated by the brevity of the flash. I force myself up and smooth out the doona, removing the indent, the evidence that I’d sat on Ted’s bed. Another deep breath before making my way down the stairs, defeated.

We’re back in the car by 12.20pm.

‘Well?’ asks Dad.

‘I have a clearer sense of Ted now, but there was nothing that particularly jumped out at me.’

‘Nothing that reminded you of John?’ Mum does up her seatbelt.

‘No.’ I look down, frustrated.

Dad starts the car. ‘You’ll find something, honey.’

‘God, I hope so. Leah’s counting on me now, too.’

We’re silent until we hit the Hume, then Mum turns around. ‘Did you see anything?’

‘What do you mean, Mum?’

‘You know what I mean.’

My mouth drops open. I thought Darren was the only one who knew…

I certainly never told Mum.

Chapter 6

‘Not this again, Jan. I thought we were done with it years ago.’

Mum holds my gaze. ‘I thought so too…but I was wrong, wasn’t I, Soph?’

Silence hangs in the air. I maintain eye contact with Mum. ‘How did you know?’

‘My grandma used to see things, know things. And I started recognising it in you just before…’ She looks down.

I gulp, hard.

‘Jan—’

Mum turns to Dad. ‘Remember how Sophie started finishing our sentences, going to answer the phone before it rang? It was soon after she turned eight.’

‘I remember you talking about it, and me saying you had an active imagination.’ Dad shakes his head. ‘That stuff’s all crap, anyways.’ He takes a quick glance at me in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Come on, Sophie. Back me up here.’ He knows I’m a logical thinker, and assumes I’m with him on this one.

My mouth is dry. I’m too stunned to speak.

‘Sophie?’

After a moment I manage a cough and begin. ‘Sorry, Dad. I used to think it was crap too…until I started seeing flashes from cases I was working. Started seeing things that weren’t in any case file and that I couldn’t possibly know.’ I take a deep breath. ‘And then I remembered…I knew John was going to be taken and did nothing to stop it.’

‘You were eight years old, Sophie.’ Mum reaches her hand over the seat and I place my hand in hers. ‘Even though I was convinced you had some of my family’s gift, I still thought those two nightmares were just dreams. Your subconscious.’ She holds my hand tighter. ‘And you never said anything about them…afterwards. So I left it.’

I nod. ‘I forgot, Mum. Repressed it all until two years ago when I remembered the nightmares. And remembered something else.’ I bite down hard on my lip.

‘Go on.’ She gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

‘I saw him kill John, Mum. Felt what he felt. And it was disgusting.’

Tears start streaming down Mum’s face. ‘Oh, baby. No wonder you made yourself forget.’

I nod, still trying to push the memory away. Just because I can remember it now, doesn’t mean I want to. A shudder travels through me.

After a few beats of silence Dad finally talks again. ‘You guys are serious?’

‘Uh huh. Sorry, Dad. I know it’s a bit out there for you, but…it is what it is.’ I finish the sentence with one of Dad’s favourite American expressions, hoping it will give some levity to the situation.

‘I don’t know, honey…’ Dad drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

Another pause, I watch cars pass periodically. Then Mum says, ‘So, did you see anything at the Strawasky’s house?’

‘Only a flash…a silhouette bending over Ted in bed. It looked like Ted was fast asleep and the man was staring at him. But that was it.’

She nods. ‘So, can you control it?’

‘I can usually induce a vision at a crime scene or by looking at crime-scene photos but it’s nearly always such small snippets that it’s hard to piece together. Sometimes I get more, but it’s often emotions. What the killer or the victim is feeling.’

Mum frowns, deep creases forming along her brow. ‘That must be horrible, dear.’

‘It is…but it can help me profile, help me get an insight into the victims and perpetrators.’

‘And John?’ Her voice is tentative, like she’s afraid to ask, afraid to know.

‘He was strangled, Mum.’ She never knew exactly how John died—and she deserves to know.

She gives a distant nod, like the how doesn’t matter to her.

‘But I can’t see much else, Mum.’ I shake my head. ‘I’ve tried so many times in the past two years. But I seem to be totally blocked. I just get the same vision over and over again.’

She nods and then takes a deep breath. ‘Does Darren know?’

‘Yes…and only Darren. He guessed the very first time I met him because I had a vision in front of him. Turns out his auntie had some abilities, too, and he recognised the signs.’

‘So how—’

Dad’s question is interrupted by my mobile phone.

‘Sophie Anderson.’

‘Sophie, it’s Lily Murphy.’

‘Hi.’ My stomach clenches, fearful she’s going to cancel on me tonight and cut me out of the case.

‘Thirty-six hours ago a boy went missing from his home just outside of Seymour. Ten years old, living on a three-hundred-acre cattle farm.’

‘They think it’s our guy?’ I lean forward, triggering my seatbelt’s locking mechanism and my parents’ faces freeze.

‘Not sure yet. But every report of a missing boy between the ages of eight and fourteen is being flagged for follow-up.’

‘Of course.’ It’s an essential step, but that flag would be taking up a lot of resources. For eight or ten year olds foul play is more likely, but for the eleven to fourteen year olds running away is more feasible. Regardless, every lead, every missing boy, has to be chased down.

‘This one’s made its way up to us because it fits our criteria. And the local cop reckons this is out of character for the boy.’

‘I see.’ Police have probably been briefed on what to look for in recent missing persons files, such as the child going missing overnight from the home. Lots of kids sneak out in the middle of the night, but they’re usually back a few hours later. ‘I’m on my way back to Melbourne from Euroa. We’ll be driving right by the Seymour exit in twenty minutes.’

‘Then you might just beat Faulkner. He left with Shaw and Danahay about forty-five minutes ago. You’re on your own with the cops on-scene, but I’ll give you the address. And whatever you do, don’t mention my name.’

‘Thanks, Lily.’

‘No worries. Make sure you’re gone by the time Faulkner gets there, okay?’

‘Will do. Are we still on for tonight?’

‘Of course. See you at my place at seven-thirty.’

As we make our way up the long driveway to the farmhouse, I’m automatically thinking about the perpetrator—or perpetrators. Could he have dragged a victim from the house all the way down to his vehicle on the road? The house is set back nearly a kilometre from the main road, so that’s some hike. Two perps certainly would have made that easier. Or perhaps he was bold enough to drive onto the private property in the dead of the night.

Our car rattles along the last section of the dirt track, surfing bumps as hard as corrugated steel. The land is dry and mostly brown, but we have been in a drought for years and if today’s an example we’re having a hot spring. A small veggie patch to the right of the house is the only sign of a garden or greenery—either the owners aren’t keen gardeners or they’re waving the white flag at the Australian sun. Why waste water on roses when the cattle and veggies need it? Off to one side is a swing-set, but it looks like it hasn’t been used for a year or two.

The mud-brick house has a steel roof and a wooden veranda running along its front. A lone cop car sits at the top of the driveway, a four-wheel drive Ford covered in brown dust…obviously local. A uniformed officer leans on the car, looking bored. At least we’ll be a break for him.

Dad pulls the car to a stop.

They’re both about to get out of the car when I say, ‘I have to be quick. I think it’s better if I go in alone, and, besides, we don’t know for sure that this is related and your presence might panic the family even more.’

Silence.

‘We don’t need to tell our story again.’ Please don’t make me say it all again. I wait, hoping my parents will concede.

Eventually Mum gives a little nod. ‘Good luck, darling.’

I climb out of the back seat and make my way over to the cop.

His expression has changed from boredom to mild curiosity. ‘You friends? Relatives?’

I shake my head. ‘I’m a profiler from Melbourne.’ So far, so true.

‘Ah, the big guns made it here already, huh?’ Cynicism weaves thickly through his voice.

I smile. ‘Hardly big guns. Homicide’s on its way but I’ve got a few questions for the boy’s parents first.’ Please don’t ask me for ID. Please.

He glances at my mum and dad in the car—they sure as hell don’t look like law enforcement.

‘I’m off duty. We were visiting cousins in Euroa when I got the call.’

He nods and gives me a real smile. Family in Euroa…I’m no longer a city slicker, a “big gun”. He jerks his head to the door. ‘Up you go then. Me partner’s inside.’

‘Thanks.’ I walk up five stone steps and notice a football underneath an outdoor table, like it was thrown there as someone ran inside.

The front door is open, but thick mesh on an outer flywire door means I can only see a few metres into the house. I knock twice on the wooden frame and within a few minutes a second uniformed officer comes into view. He’s older than his partner, with tanned and weathered skin and more grey than black in both his hair and beard.

‘Hullo?’ He opens the wire door.

‘Hi. I’m a profiler from Melbourne here to interview the parents.’

‘Already? Must have broken some speed limits to get up here. Better show us your ID, then.’

‘I’m actually off duty at the moment. I was in Euroa with my parents visiting family, and I left my badge at home.’ I shrug my shoulders and look at the ground sheepishly.

‘And they called you in on your day off? That’s rough.’

I shrug again, carefully avoiding actually impersonating an officer. I am a profiler, I am from Melbourne and I am off duty.

‘Can’t say I’ve ever met a profiler before.’ He puts his hand out. ‘Jamie Bell.’

‘Hi, Jamie. I’m Sophie. Sophie Anderson.’ Faulkner will know I’ve been here, but I’m not going to make up a fake name, and I’ve got more important things to worry about…like finding this boy. If he has been taken by our perp, we’ve probably got three to six months to find him alive, but I’d prefer to get this done in mere days. Ideally we’d get to him before the bastard hurt him physically or emotionally, but I’d say it’s already too late for that. Thirty-six hours or more is a long time to be held by a paedophile. In most cases involving a sadistic paedophile the victim’s dead within hours. And even though our guy’s different, the boy will already be highly traumatised.

Officer Bell leans in. ‘Do you think it’s related to Ted Strawasky?’ I can hear genuine concern in his voice. It’s a small community, so chances are he knows the victim. He could be the local cop who vouched for the disappearance being out of character.

‘Not sure yet. Do you know the boy?’

Bell runs a stocky hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. ‘Yeah. My son plays footy with Curtis Baker. I’ve known the Bakers for years.’ He blows out a deep breath and his lips vibrate. ‘Curtis is a good boy. He wouldn’t just run off. I’ve been trying to convince the St Kilda Road Office that this was extremely suspicious for the past day and a half.’

I nod. Bell was helping his friends out, as well as doing his job and making sure Curtis Baker’s disappearance was escalated in light of Ted Strawasky’s murder.

‘Ten years old, right?’ All this information would be in the missing persons report, which if I was really on the case I would have read. I didn’t even know the boy’s name.

‘That’s right.’

I nod.

‘Too young for…this.’ He winces.

Forced and violent sexual encounters are horrific no matter what age, but Bell’s dwelling on the additional horror of cases involving young children—just like we all do. Innocence should never be violated.

He takes another deep breath. ‘Ready?’

I nod—it’s Bell who’s not ready.

‘Go easy on them, huh?’

‘Sure.’

He leads me down the hallway, past a large bedroom on the left, taking the first right into the living room. Beige carpet, well-worn, with a couple of stains and a few small, thread-bare patches. A burgundy rug sits under a wooden coffee table and a modern leather couch and two armchairs are pointed at a large-screen TV. The furniture looks new, even though the carpet is obviously at least fifteen to twenty years old. Through another door I can make out a casual dining room, and, past that, the kitchen.

A woman in her mid-thirties with dark red hair is curled up in one corner of the couch, a sleeping baby in her arms. She stares out the front window into the distance, chunks of hair falling haphazardly across her pale face.

‘Sarah?’ Bell’s voice is soft, tentative.

Her head makes the quarter turn directly to us, but the movement is sluggish, like she’s in slow motion.

‘This is Sophie Anderson. She’s been working on Ted Strawasky’s case.’

She gives a slow-motion nod.

I move in next to her. ‘Hi.’ I look at the baby in her arms, a tiny little girl. ‘She’s gorgeous,’ I say. ‘How old?’

‘Nine months.’ She looks down and strokes the baby’s hair. ‘Rachel.’

I nod. ‘She’s beautiful.’

After a little pause, Officer Bell asks if I’d like to speak to Don and Sarah together.

‘Yes, that’d be great.’

We often speak to the parents separately, particularly if we’re trying to rule them out as suspects, but in this case I need to be quick. I’ll leave it up to Faulkner and the rest of Homicide to officially rule out the parents. Generally speaking, the older children get the less likely it is that one of the parents was involved in their disappearance or death—especially when the parents are still together.

Bell heads for the kitchen, while I continue talking to Sarah Baker about her baby, focusing on what’s probably the only positive thing in her life at the moment. A couple of minutes later Bell returns carrying a stack of glasses and a large jug. Mr Baker is a tall, solid man with tanned, leathery skin and wispy blond hair. He’s in shorts and a T-shirt, and would easily fit into a commercial for Victoria’s well-known beer, VB. I still remember the ads from the seventies and eighties, with the punch line: A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer and the best cold beer is Vic…Victoria Bitter.

Bell places the jug on the table and starts unstacking the glasses. ‘Sarah makes the best real lemonade I’ve ever tasted. Thought we could use some in this heat.’ He pours a glass and walks over to Mrs Baker, bending down in front of her. ‘Here’s some lemonade for you, Sarah.’

She shakes her head.

Don Baker steps in. ‘Come on, love. You need to keep your strength up…for Rachel. She’ll need another feed when she wakes.’

This spurs Sarah into action, although while she does pick up the glass, she doesn’t actually take a sip.

‘I’ll hold Rachel for a bit. While you talk to Sophie.’ Bell holds his hands out, but Mrs Baker clutches at Rachel and even turns her shoulder slightly, blocking Bell.

Mr Baker tries. ‘You need to put her down some time, Sarah.’

‘She’s fine. She’s happy with me.’

He takes a breath, but then decides to leave it. If holding onto Rachel as tightly as she can is getting Mrs Baker through the day, so be it. At least she’s got something, someone, to focus her maternal instincts on. Maybe this is what Mum was like with me, even though I was much older.

Bell pours another three glasses of lemonade and hands them out. Once everyone’s settled, I start.

‘First off, I want to warn you that I’ll be asking you questions you’ve already answered, and the homicide detectives who will be here soon will be doing the same. I know it’s hard, but sometimes on the third or even tenth recounting, you’ll remember something new. And it could be something important. Often the most inconsequential things can hold clues for us.’

Don Baker winces and glances at his wife—it’s torture for parents to go over it again and again, but it’s essential for us. Plus, in this case I won’t be sharing information with Homicide and vice versa.

‘Tell me about Curtis. What’s he like, what does he like doing?’

Mr Baker does all the talking, while Mrs Baker sits almost perfectly still. After ten minutes I have a definite picture of Curtis—athletic, outgoing, popular, a bit of a prankster, independent, but also respectful to his parents, teachers and other elders. He preferred to be outdoors, but he also liked computer games, like lots of young kids. He was the full forward for the town’s Under 12s Aussie Rules team and was a known goal-scorer with lots of talk about his potential. And that was his dream, to become a professional football player. Of course, that’s lots of kids’ goal but it sounds like Curtis might have had a shot. Maybe he still does.

Photos around the room show a fun-loving kid, who loved Australia’s great outdoors. Most photographs were taken outside, either with his family or with friends. There are also some beautiful photos of him with his sister. Ten’s a little old to be welcoming a sibling into your life, but if the photos are any indication it looks like he thoroughly enjoyed the baby.

‘How did he get along with Rachel?’ It’s a question I need to ask. Although the smiles in the snaps seem genuine, it’s possible to look happy for a photo—after all, it only captures a split second of your life. We need to rule out the possibility that he ran away because he felt his sister was getting all the attention. Leaving your house in the middle of the night and staying away for forty-eight hours is a sure-fire way to get both mum and dad’s focus squarely on you. Not the wisest choice, but people do crazy things over jealousy.

‘He loves Rachel.’ Mrs Baker speaks for the first time. ‘He was so excited when we told him I was pregnant.’ She glances at her husband and manages a small smile. ‘Remember, darling?’

‘Of course.’

‘And when she came along…he just doted on her. When she started on solids at six months, Curtis wanted to feed her. He changes the nappies—’ she laughs, ‘—but only the wet ones. And he loves dressing her.’ She stares at the full glass of lemonade.

I smile. ‘Sounds like a great big brother.’

She nods, but in an instant her smile vanishes. I hate to think what’s running through her head now.

I look at Mr Baker. ‘So, yesterday morning? Tell me what happened.’

‘I went to wake up Curtis at six. He usually helps me in the paddocks before school, making sure there’s water and feed for the cattle.’ He takes a large gulp of lemonade. ‘But he wasn’t in bed.’ Baker rubs the back of his hand across his forehead, like he’s wiping sweat off. ‘I looked around the house, and then checked with Sarah. She had Rachel on the boob in here. But she hadn’t seen him, or heard him…’ He pauses.

‘Go on.’

‘I checked in the shed. Bluey, his horse, was still in there and so was the tractor.’ He shrugs. ‘There was nowhere for him to go. It was a mystery.’

‘Is that when you started getting worried?’

‘I guess.’ He studies his hands, which rest in his lap. ‘But I kept looking for the logical explanation. Only there wasn’t one. Curtis was never an early riser. I normally had to drag him out of bed.’

‘So part of you felt something was amiss from the moment you went into his room?’

He nods, his face scrunching. ‘I…I didn’t call the police for a while. First I jumped in the car and did the rounds of the farm. Then we rang up his best mate. No go. So then I rang Jamie. We know each other from the kids’ footy.’

‘Yeah, Officer Bell told me.’

Baker continues. ‘I could tell Jamie was worried too. And that’s when I remembered about that other kid. In Euroa.’

‘Ted Strawasky.’

‘I’d seen it on the news and…’ He shudders, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Mrs Baker starts rocking back and forth, almost spilling the lemonade. I’m not sure if the rocking is to comfort herself or the baby.

After nearly a minute Don Baker looks at me, intently. ‘Do you think…do you think that monster’s got our boy?’

‘I’m not sure. It’s possible.’ Human instinct makes me want to sugar coat the truth, say, No, it’s highly unlikely. I’m sure Curtis is just off with his mates. But I’d be lying…and in the long run it would do the Bakers, and the investigation, more harm than good.

Slow tears stream down Mrs Baker’s face. She’s too numb for hysterical tears…they come later. Baker strides over to his wife and rubs her back, but he seems a little uncomfortable with it, like he’s not sure how to best comfort her. Then again, he’s an Aussie male, an Aussie farmer—a tough breed, not known for being in touch with their emotions.

‘Did you ever notice anyone looking at Curtis? Anyone strange hanging around?’ Our perp’s careful, but someone must have seen him somewhere along the way.

‘No. But I don’t…I don’t look for that sort of thing.’

‘What about you, Mrs Baker?’ I press.

She shakes her head. ‘But I’ve been distracted…with Rachel.’ The beginnings of self-imposed guilt.

‘Did Curtis mention anything unusual? Even something small like someone asking for directions?’

‘Not that I remember. You, honey?’ Mr Baker turns to his wife, but she shakes her head again.

‘But you wouldn’t think twice about that in these parts. We often get people lost down by the fork in the road, or people looking for the highway. You stop, tell ’em which way to go, and they head off.’

I nod. It would be easy to cruise country roads and towns unnoticed, particularly in this area, which is so close to the Hume and the Goulburn Valley Highway up to Shepparton. Even if people realised you weren’t a local, with so much traffic passing through they wouldn’t think twice about someone asking directions, or someone driving the same stretch of road repeatedly.

I move us back to the abduction. ‘Was there any sign of forced entry, Officer Bell?’

‘No. But like most people in these parts, Don and Sarah don’t always lock up.’

‘The front door?’ I try to keep the surprise out of my voice. It’s impossible for me to even think about going to sleep without the house fully secured. But that’s me, and that’s city living. Plus my day job tends to breed paranoia when it comes to personal safety.

Mr Baker shrugs. ‘Sometimes, we leave it unlocked. We’re so far out here. Middle of nowhere, really.’

And on this occasion that suited the perpetrator.

‘It’s a long way from the road to your house. Do you think you would have heard a car in the middle of the night?’

‘Hard to say. Reckon I’m more likely to have seen it, if its headlights were on. We’ve got the front room.’ He jerks his head towards the front of the house.

Our guy could have driven up slowly with his lights off. Walked in the front door, got Jamie, and then been on his way.

‘You don’t have dogs?’ Most farmers keep at least two working dogs.

‘We normally do. But one of our guys died last year, and with the baby coming we decided to hold off buying a new pup. And then our other fella died a couple of weeks ago.’

Mrs Baker leans forward to put her full glass of lemonade on the coffee table. ‘Curtis loved that dog and we didn’t want to replace him like we didn’t care.’

‘I understand.’

A dog barking would have woken them, and probably would have deterred the killer in the first place. But how were they to know their son was being stalked?

‘I’d like to have a look at Curtis’s room. Get a feel for him, if that’s okay?’

Don Baker jumps to his feet. ‘I’ll show you through.’

Curtis’s bedroom is a small room towards the back of the house. As soon as we’re inside Mr Baker turns to me.

‘What happened to Ted Strawasky? Exactly?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t know, Mr Baker.’ I clear my throat. ‘To be honest, his body was too badly decomposed to tell us much. At this stage we don’t even have a conclusive cause of death.’

He wipes his hand across his brow again. ‘Was he…had he been interfered with?’

‘It’s impossible to say. He died six months ago.’ I don’t go into detail, don’t tell him we couldn’t swab for semen, couldn’t check for sexual trauma—there were no organs to check.

A long pause. ‘But you have to assume he was, right?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s likely, yes. He was held for three months. We don’t know what happened during that time, although there were no broken bones and no evidence of trauma to the skull.’

‘So he wasn’t beaten, but other than that…’

‘I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got at the moment, Mr Baker.’ At least it’s all I know. Maybe Lily Murphy will have extra information for me tonight, but maybe not. A pang of guilt about misleading the Bakers, and the lovely Officer Jamie Bell, stabs at me. When Homicide arrives in ten or fifteen minutes, the Bakers and Bell will know I misled them. Know I’m not Victoria Police’s profiler.

Silence hangs in the air, tempting me to come clean, but I’m saved by Mr Baker.

‘I’m gonna check on Sarah. Make sure she drinks that lemonade. You’ll be okay here?’

‘Uh huh. I won’t be long.’

I pull on a pair of latex gloves I’d found buried in my old bedroom. When I was working in Australia, I hadn’t lived at home for years, but I always kept some gloves there in case I was called to a crime scene when I was visiting my parents. I thought I might need them at Ted Strawasky’s house and lucky for me I brought them. I certainly don’t want to feed Faulkner’s rage any more than necessary. He’s going to be furious I was here, but if I left prints to boot…

After a quick snoop around, I become increasingly aware that my time is running out. Sitting on the bed, I immediately start the relaxation techniques that make me more receptive to a waking vision. I stay sitting up, but let my body relax bit-by-bit before taking deep breaths. I feel more pressure than usual to see something, anything. But I’ve got a much higher emotional stake in this case, in this killer.

I walk down the hallway, anticipation building. Last door on the left. I creep into his room, my eyes adjusting to the light enough for me to easily make out his bedroom furniture, and his sleeping form on the small single bed. I move closer, leaning over him. So quiet, so peaceful. And they always look so much younger when they’re asleep...beautiful. Another few seconds and he’ll be mine forever. I move behind the bed and watch him for several minutes; listening to his breathing, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

Then, when it’s time, I move quickly, slamming my hand down across his face and nose. He wakes up, kicks, squirms. He’s strong for his age, but not strong enough for me. And his struggles quickly stop when I threaten his parents and baby sister. But I leave nothing to chance…I bring a rock down on the back of his head, knocking him out.

I carry him down the hall, out the front door and towards the shed. Once I’m closer, I can see my car. I’d made sure it wasn’t visible from the house, just in case someone woke up. Then again, I’d never let anything or anyone stand in the way of my boys. If the family woke up, they’d die.

I jolt out of it, almost losing the lemonade as my stomach churns. Sometimes my visions are from the victim’s point of view, sometimes I’m an observer, and sometimes they’re from the perpetrator’s point of view. The latter are the ones I particularly hate—feeling warped minds within mine. But I don’t have time to think about that now. A glance at my watch tells me I’ve got to move, fast. The vision’s told me a lot, including the fact that the perpetrator acted alone, or was at least alone in the Baker’s house.

I hurry back to the living room, where nothing seems to have changed since I left, except Mrs Baker’s glass is now half empty. Don Baker managed to get her to drink at least some of it. Rachel’s still fast asleep and Bell is silently watching his friends. One of the heartaches of country policing—if you have to arrest someone or do a death knock, chances are you know them.

I thank Mr and Mrs Baker but they’re both in a daze.

Mr Baker looks up at me. ‘Sarah’s Mum is flying across from Perth today. To help out.’ It’s an out-of-the-blue comment, and it’s like he’s trying to let me know that someone better able to comfort his wife is on the way. Someone better able to care for her than himself.

I give him a nod. The reinforcements are coming. They’ll be needed.

Chapter 7

From the outside, Lily Murphy’s terrace house in Kay Street, Carlton looks run down and in need of some major renovations. The beige paint on the iron fence is peeling, and the second-floor balcony looks like it’s an accident waiting to happen. I even tilt my head to confirm that the top storey really has sunk a little to one side—and I think it’s worse than the last time I was here nearly three years ago.

Carlton is a prosperous inner-city suburb but it’s also one of Melbourne’s oldest neighbourhoods—and that means older houses that frequently need re-stumping, re-wiring…sometimes re-everything. And I’m guessing Lily Murphy’s government salary isn’t going to cover the costs of any major overhauls, not when demand is so high for skilled tradespeople. Nowadays most tradespeople make more than Lily and me, even with our college degrees and Lily’s doctorate.

Lily answers the door in loose khaki shorts and a tight singlet top. She’s braless, but then again it did hit 35C today. As the door opens, I get a whiff of garlic.

‘Hi.’ She looks wrecked, but who knows if it’s the heat, lack of sleep or stress. All three are good contenders. She steps back. ‘Come in.’

The inside is just how I remember it—polished boards, chandeliers in retro-chic, burgundy walls and cream curtains. Lily takes me into the first door on the right, a large double bedroom that she uses as a study. Down the hallway are the living room, kitchen, laundry and a toilet. Upstairs are the bathroom and two more bedrooms.

In the study, one wall is almost totally dedicated to whiteboards, and at the moment they’re plastered with crime-scene photos from this case, stuck up with magnets. A photo of John, smiling, catches my attention and I wince.

Lily follows my gaze and shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. I should have taken it down.’

I take in a deep, long breath. ‘No. We need the complete picture, and he’s part of that.’

Lily’s eyes narrows. ‘You’re on dangerous ground here, Soph.’

‘How so?’

‘I’m still not convinced this is in your best interests and now you’re playing it cool with a psychologist?’ Unlike me, Lily was a fully qualified and practising psychologist before she came to the Victoria Police. She could quit tomorrow and still consult as a forensic psychologist or even go back to her speciality from years back—treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But Lily believes in the system—serving the community in the best way possible. It’s one of the things we have in common…a sense of justice and a need to play a role in it. Even though what we do is all about the perpetrators and getting into their heads, it’s all done for the victims.

‘I’m fine, Lily. Honestly.’

Her level stare is unwavering, so I keep talking. ‘It was a long time ago, Lily. All I want now is justice—for John and all the other victims.’ I try not to think of my need for vengeance, of my anger that’s bubbling to the surface.

She maintains eye contact. ‘I’m glad Faulkner’s black-listed you. If he’d welcomed you with open arms, I doubt you’d stick to the profiling.’

I take a breath to protest, but Lily raises her hand in a stop signal. ‘Don’t even try to deny it, Sophie. The bastard who did this,’ she motions to the whiteboards, ‘deserves to rot in hell. But it’s not your place to put him there. No matter how much you want to.’

‘Lily, I don’t even have a gun.’

‘Really? What about the 9mm still registered in your name?’

‘Locked away in my parents’ safe. Where it has been for the past two and a half years.’

She looks me up and down, like she’s searching for the bulge of a weapon.

‘Come on, Lily. I’m not stupid.’

She shrugs. ‘Thought maybe you’d gone gun crazy…now you live in the US.’

I smile, happy she’s lightened the mood, and go with it. ‘Everyone’s packing over there.’

She gives a little chuckle before her face drops. ‘The stats really are scary.’

I sigh. ‘I know. I live it now. Higher murder rate, more firearm accidents and more cops killed in the line of duty.’

She nods. ‘I don’t envy you that.’

Some people say it’s not about the gun, but the person who wields it. And while that’s true, when a gun—when any extreme and final answer to a problem—is within reach, people make stupid choices. Instead of yelling or throwing a punch when they’re angry, they pick up the gun. One small movement of the index finger and lives are taken, lives are changed…forever. While I personally don’t deal with these types of homicides—my cases are generally extremely violent, people who would have killed with or without a gun—there are still people who make horrific split-second decisions because a gun is readily accessible.

‘You eaten?’ Lily leans against the doorframe to the study, effectively blocking my view of the photos.

I shake my head.

‘Good. I made us some pizzas. Easy to eat and talk.’

I follow her down the hall and into the kitchen. With each step the aroma of garlic becomes more intense, more enticing. On the kitchen counter stand a bottle of red, two wine glasses and two plates.

‘Do you know if Faulkner had anything to say about me being at the Bakers’ house today?’

‘Ooo, yeah.’ She lets out a sarcastic chuckle. ‘Rang me up and nearly busted my eardrum. He accused me of feeding you information.’

The thought’s enough to make me cringe. I know only too well what Faulkner’s like when he’s angry. ‘What did you say?’

‘I did the only thing I could…feigned ignorance.’

‘I’m sorry, Lily. Sorry to put you through that.’

She waves a dismissive hand at me before opening the oven door. ‘Faulkner’s never been too fond of me anyway.’ She pulls out the top pizza with a gloved hand. ‘The cops have pulled missing persons reports dating back from the mid-sixties.’

‘Lots?’

‘Uh huh. Hope you’re not too jetlagged. We could be at this for a while.’

‘I’m sure you’ve got enough coffee on hand to keep me going.’

‘That I do.’ She puts the pizza onto a wooden chopping board and starts cutting it with a pizza slicer. ‘This one’s vegetarian.’

Gourmet veggie—olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fetta, mushrooms, onions, roast capsicum. ‘It looks gorgeous.’

‘Thanks. Wine?’

‘Uh huh. I’ll do that.’ I open the screw-top wine and pour out two small glasses while Lily dishes up a couple of slices of pizza each.

‘So how many files?’ I ask as we’re walking down the hall to the study.

‘Forty possibles, which they narrowed down to twenty that they feel are more likely. Better fits. Homicide gave me the original forty for a second opinion.’

‘Good. And all the way through? In case the perp’s been active all this time we just haven’t found any bodies.’

‘Yup but it doesn’t look like we have any matches from around 1979 or 1980 to 2008.’

‘What about victims that could overlap?’

She turns back to me and stops. ‘You really think he holds them simultaneously?’ Her head’s cocked to one side in contemplation.

I shrug. ‘Just a hunch, I guess. Leave no stone unturned, right?’ I try to downplay the theory. It’s based solely on my vision and I’ve got nothing to back it up with.

‘We can look more closely at the dates and check it out.’ She leans against the wall. ‘Got some bad news from forensics today too. Nothing on the underwear, not that it’s a big surprise, given the state of the underwear and how much time had elapsed.’

‘True,’ I say, but I can’t hide my disappointment.

‘And no luck for DNA on the evidence from the seventies. The hair sample wasn’t good enough to build a DNA profile.’

‘Shit.’ The lack of forensic results puts the pressure on the Homicide team and on us—well, on Lily officially.

Back in the study, Lily sinks into her office chair and swings it around to face her desk. A small laptop computer is plugged into a bigger, stand-alone screen, with the Victoria Police logo floating across the monitor. ‘Take a seat.’ Lily points to a chair that’s obviously part of her dining-room set. ‘Sorry I don’t have anything more comfy. I’m used to flying solo.’

‘No worries.’ Once my plate and glass of wine are planted on a tiny clear space of desk, I pull the chair over. Looking at Lily’s computer reminds me that the cops took Ted Strawasky’s computer for evidence. ‘Hey, any news on the kid’s computer?’

‘Nothing so far. He was on Facebook, but no other social networking sites or chat rooms, and so far all the Facebook friends we’ve checked are known to him and in his age group—or family.’

I nod. Predators who find victims online usually pretend to be the same age or just a couple of years older than the victims, so one of the things the cops will be doing is making sure the Facebook profiles of Ted Strawasky’s “friends” are real. But it does take time to contact everyone, especially if he was very active online. I sigh…time to get started and put the bad forensic news behind us. ‘Shoot,’ I say, nodding at the large pile of files on a corner desk.

Lily takes the top folder and is about to start when my mobile phone buzzes.

‘Sorry. I’ll switch it to silent.’

‘Take it if you like. It’ll give me time to eat.’ She grins and bites into her pizza.

Fishing my phone out of my handbag, I look at the screen and recognise Matt’s number. I let out a sigh. It’s the third time he’s called in as many days and I guess I can’t avoid him forever. Still, now isn’t the time. I hit the reject button, sending it to my voicemail. I’ll deal with him later.

‘Ready when you are.’

Lily finishes a mouthful of pizza. ‘Harry Jonas, January 1968. Nine years old. Disappeared from his grandparent’s home during the middle of the night. He was visiting for school holidays. Case never solved.’

As we make our way through the case files, we devour our pizza. Sometimes gruesome work is hungry work. By the time Lily brings out the smoked salmon and goats cheese pizza and tops up our wine, we’ve moved through eight of the original forty files. She’s right…it will be a long night.

Four hours, and for me two glasses of wine and four coffees, later we’ve agreed on twelve missing persons that are most likely related to our perpetrator. One of Lily’s spare whiteboards now has a bullet-point list of the years and missing persons, plus the known murders from 1975, 1976 and 1978.

- 1968—one MP

- 1970—two MP

- 1972—one MP

- 1973—one MP

- 1974—two MP

- 1975—one abduction and murder

- 1976—one abduction and murder

- 1978—one abduction and murder

- 1980—two MP

- 2008—one MP

- 2009—one abduction and murder (Ted Strawasky)

- 2010—one MP (Curtis Baker)

While most of them are unsolved missing persons cases, there were the three remains from 1975-1978, including John’s body in 1978.

‘So it certainly looks like our guy was off the scene for twenty-eight years.’ I look sleepily at my watch—nearly midnight.

‘Uh huh.’ Lily also glances at the time. ‘Let’s move on to victim commonalities.’ She starts a new column on the whiteboard titled Victims.

‘Let’s start with the obvious,’ I say. ‘They’re all male, between the ages of eight and fourteen, although mostly at the younger end of that range.’

Lily writes it up and adds Pre-pubescent. It’s an important point because for most paedophiles, once the victims move into puberty and start looking more like men than boys, the perpetrator loses interest in them.

‘From a personality perspective there are some similarities too,’ I say. ‘All the boys were outgoing and well-liked.’

She nods. ‘Confident boys, popular. Maybe partly because of their sporting abilities.’

I point to her. ‘Exactly…they were all involved in sports.’

Australia is a sport-mad country and, particularly for the Aussie male, athleticism often brings with it a certain degree of popularity. Professional Aussie Rules players, swimmers, cricketers…they’re all instant celebrities. And that adulation of sporting heroes starts young.

‘So he likes them young, confident and sporty.’

I nod. ‘But not cocky. All the descriptions of the victims are more fresh-faced wholesome kids with a natural talent in the sporting arena.’

‘True. He doesn’t like the ones who are already developing an ego because of their sporting prowess.’

‘Uh huh. And it could be he’s seen them during their sporting events.’

‘Local competitions may be his hunting ground.’

I nod and Lily writes it up on the board. ‘The week before John was taken, he came first in a swimming competition at Bendigo.’

‘Bendigo…where the first two boys were from. Bendigo’s a common denominator then, at least for the boys from the seventies.’

‘Yeah. Although he took John back to Shepp…after.’

Lily raises her eyebrows. ‘Maybe it’s significant somehow.’

A heavy silence hangs in the air. If it is significant, how?

‘Family lives.’ Lily moves us on. ‘The vics are mostly from nuclear families. Ted and one of the boys from 1980 are the only two who come from separated or divorced homes.’

‘And Ted’s father only left a couple of months before he was abducted. Depending on our perp’s cycle…’

Lily nods. ‘If he watches them for a few months beforehand, he would have been watching Ted in a nuclear family environment.’ Lily writes it up on the board. ‘And the 1980 missing boy…’ She hunts through the pile of twelve files and plucks out the target file. ‘Nope, separated for a year before the abduction.’ She writes up the two exceptions to the nuclear family.

We sit in a contemplative hush for a few minutes before Lily takes a sharp breath in. She’s about to talk, but then hesitates.

‘What?’

Again, hesitation before she continues. ‘I just noticed something else that most of the victims have in common.’

‘Yes?’

She takes a deep breath. ‘A younger sibling. And mostly a younger sister.’

I’m well aware that John fits that profile, but do the others? I mentally go over some of the victims in my head, trying to remember the details.

Shit…she’s right.

Lily’s already flicking through the files and tallying up the sibling structures for each family. Eight of the twelve missing boys have younger sisters, with no other siblings, two are only children and two are middle children of a three-child household…with younger sisters. And of the four known murder victims, all have a younger sister.

‘Damn.’ I bite my lip, concentrating on making sense of it and not thinking about John.

‘It’s a compelling similarity. But why? Why does he target boys with younger sisters?’

‘Maybe it’s his idea of compassion,’ I suggest. ‘He wants to leave the parents with one child.’

Lily raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know… I guess it’s possible. It would fit with the fact he dumps the bodies with their underwear on, as if he’s ashamed of what he does to the boys and feels some sense of remorse. Maybe he’s anticipating that remorse when he chooses the victims and knowing the parents have another child eases some of that guilt.’

‘I don’t know if anything can ease their pain.’ But as soon as I say it, I think about Mrs Baker cradling Rachel like her life depended on it. She was definitely finding some comfort from her other child.

Silence for another few minutes, before I have another suggestion. ‘What if he’s replicating his family life?’

‘So you think he’s got kids? One son and a younger daughter?’

I cock my head to one side. ‘I don’t see him as a family man. Logistically it would be tough too, given he holds these boys for such a long time. He needs complete privacy for that.’

‘Maybe…Mind you, it could explain the gap,’ Lily suggests. ‘From 1981 to 2008 he was busy having his own family. Once they were grown up and he was on his own through divorce or being widowed, he started again.’

She’s made a great point. ‘That would fit.’ I pause. ‘I guess the other possibility is that he’s replicating his childhood. He was the older brother with a younger sister.’

Lily nods. ‘Both good options.’ She creates another column called Offender and writes up Could have two children—eldest = boy, youngest = girl, or could have been part of two-child household growing up. She also adds in Remorse—underwear and choosing boys with a younger sister.

‘If the perpetrator was the older brother, maybe he was assaulted around the same age as the boys he’s targeting.’ Some violent crimes are cyclical—like the boy who sees his father beating his mother and then becomes a wife-beater himself. It can be hard not to follow our early role models, no matter how wrong they are.

Lily stares at the whiteboard, tapping the black marker against her desk. ‘Maybe we should also look at the sisters? See if they have anything in common.’

‘You think he targeted through us somehow?’ My objectivity is momentarily lost—she’s talking about me. Suggesting that somehow the perp found John through me. I shiver, pushing the thought that I led the killer to John away.

She turns around, facing me front-on. ‘It could be the link, Sophie. We have to look into it.’

She’s right. And my emotional involvement in the case probably meant I couldn’t see that. If I ever did come close to drawing that connection in my subconscious, likely I wrote it off as the misplaced guilt survivors of such things often feel. Even having it verbalised is confronting, to say the least.

Despite my hesitation, I give her a nod of agreement.

‘I’ll start on that tomorrow. I think it’s best if I handle that angle, but I might have some questions for you, Sophie.’

‘Okay.’ I chew on my bottom lip. ‘Anything.’

Lily presses her lips together before taking a breath. ‘Okay. The time gap.’

Although we discussed it briefly at Madame Brussells, we brainstorm the possible explanations for such a large gap between victims, and missing boys, going into more detail this time and including the possibility that he kept his murderous urges at bay when he had a family himself.

Given he’s resurfaced after so many years, four favoured explanations emerge: one, a killer who’s been living in another country; two, a man who was in prison; three, a killer who stopped while he raised his family; and four, a killing partnership with a new partner recruited a couple of years ago. We have to assume he was out of action from 1980 to 2008, given no disappearances match his MO during this time frame. If he had been in jail, twenty-eight years is a long time. Like in the States, even though “life” imprisonment in Australia can mean exactly that, often judges set a minimum time. For violent crimes that might be twenty or twenty-five years. If our guy got more than that as the minimum sentence, he was most likely charged with multiple offences. It’s an easy enough search for someone to work on tomorrow—identify all the prisoners who were released in 2007 or 2008 and see how long they were in jail for and what the charges were. If he had been convicted of a crime it most likely would have been for the sexual assault and murder of a child, and surely the cases would have been linked up to John and the others. Problem is, I think our guy’s careful—too careful to get caught.

That leaves us with a potential partnership that’s been reformed with a new dominant personality, the family option or the possibility he was living in another country. Tomorrow, Lily will get onto her contacts in Australasia—New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, etc. Certainly Australians can work in New Zealand without a visa so that will be our first port of call. Plus New Zealand uses the Canadian-developed ViCLAS system to identify crime linkages. Even though the system was only introduced in 2005, maybe they’ve entered in old cases. Thailand, with its raging child pornography and sexual exploitation of children, will be another target, as will Singapore with its high Aussie ex-pat community. And I’ll also be calling my Interpol contacts—maybe they can mine the information on child abductions from Australasia. But that’s all tomorrow, all in office hours.

‘And there could be some crossovers,’ I note, looking at the years that have two boys missing. In some cases there’s six months between the abductions, but in others there’s only a couple of months and that would fit with my vision, in which there seemed to be multiple victims held against their will. There have even been cases of children kept in captivity for years.

‘It’s definitely feasible, but it’s impossible to confirm when we don’t know what actually happened to these boys.’ She points at the list of missing persons. ‘They could be alive and well…somewhere.’ She says it with uncertainty…not many young boys voluntarily disappear from the face of the earth.

‘What about cause of death?’ I ask. ‘I’m thinking manual strangulation.’ While this would tie in with the personal nature of the crime, I have the added insight of seeing the killer’s hands close around John’s neck. Again, I’m relying heavily on my visions for clues and I hope my gift isn’t leading me astray. Can I trust my visions when the case is so personal?

‘It would be a good fit.’ Lily leans back in her chair and finishes the last of the wine. Unlike me, she didn’t have to worry about driving home. ‘But impossible to prove without a fresher body. We need marks on skin.’

‘We need skin.’

Even in Cameron Howell’s body, found just six weeks after death, decomposition was too advanced to see ligature marks on the skin.

She nods. ‘It’s the same with the presumed sex crimes. I know it’s highly unlikely, but it’s possible these boys aren’t being sexually assaulted.’

I force myself to think about it. ‘Like you say, possible, but I doubt it.’

‘What if the underwear isn’t about remorse? It could be because he doesn’t see them as sexual…a sign that he hasn’t taken their underwear off at any point.’

The prospect that only John’s life was taken, and not his sexual innocence, is comforting and a notion I’d love to latch onto, but I know that statistically speaking a perpetrator targeting and killing young boys…the chances are incredibly remote. ‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Hopefully we can close in on him through the jail records or crimes in another country.’

‘True. And the profile should help, too.’

I nod, almost being able to taste a suspect pool. Names…man, that’d be great.

‘Signature?’ Serial killers are known to have a signature—something they do with their victims or at a crime scene that is part of their ritual and something they’re compelled to do every time. So what’s our guy’s signature? ‘We could be back to the underwear. Maybe part of his signature is leaving the bodies the way he found them, as innocent boys. Or it could have some other personal significance to him.’

‘It’s part of his ritual, whether it’s a sign of remorse or not,’ Lily agrees. ‘But signature’s hard to definitively identify when the remains are so old.’

I nod. It could be something we can’t see because the bodies are always bones. Could be he marks the flesh in some way…but the flesh is gone. Or maybe he poses the bodies in a certain way…but the scavenging activities of animals mean we’ve never found an intact skeleton.

‘Hell, we don’t even know where he kills them,’ Lily says. ‘Does he take them out to the bush and kill them, or does he kill them in his house and then dispose of the bodies?’

‘A sadistic paedophile usually kills in anger, for sexual pleasure, so it’s more likely they’re killed at his house or wherever he holds the boys, and then transported once they’re dead.’

‘Agreed.’ She picks up her empty glass of wine, trying to drain the last drop before letting out a deep sigh. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m toast.’

With my eyes getting heavier, I have to agree. ‘Me too. Will we call it quits?’

‘Yeah.’ Lily stands up. ‘This is going to be a tough one to profile. We’ve got contradictory information and the possibility of two perps…one who keeps the children alive.’

I nod. ‘God only knows what happens in the hell-hole where it keeps them.’

Chapter 8

I arrive back at my parents’ Camberwell home at 1.30am—late by any standards, let alone with how I’ve been feeling. Factoring in the shift from LA’s time zone, it’s the equivalent of staying up all night and being at work for a couple of hours. No wonder I feel like a train wreck. At least I can sleep in a little tomorrow.

Pulling into the driveway, I notice Matt leaning against a black BMW a few metres away. What’s he doing here, and at this time? I give him an awkward wave, not sure on the protocol when an ex-boyfriend is at your doorstep in the middle of the night. I’ve seen this scenario a few times in case files, but it never ends well—then again I’m talking about murder, and jealous stakeouts, which wouldn’t be in Matt’s repertoire. Especially not now, over two years on.

As soon as the car’s in park and the ignition’s off, I clamber out and walk back down the driveway.

‘Hello, stranger.’ Matt’s making his way up the drive and we meet halfway.

‘Hi.’ I manage a smile. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Well, given you won’t take or return my calls, I figured this was the only way to talk to you.’ He gives a little shrug. ‘I know what you’re like when you’re on a case…even if it is your brother’s.’

I don’t have to justify my actions to Matt, but he’s a good guy and maybe he does deserve an explanation. ‘I haven’t been avoiding you, Matt. When you called tonight I was with the profiler who’s working the case and we were in the middle of something.’

He nods, but his face says Whatever.

Silence.

Eventually he starts shaking his head. ‘All that time. Seven years we were together and you never told me what happened to John.’

I look over his shoulder, avoiding eye contact. ‘I told you he died.’

‘Yeah. In a car accident.’ Another shake of the head. ‘No wonder you told me not to bring him up with your parents. It wasn’t because it would upset them, it was because you lied.’

‘Look, Matt. I’m tired…wrecked. Let’s talk about this tomorrow.’

He grabs my free hand. ‘I could have helped.’

I give a little grunt. ‘How?’

‘By talking to you about it. Helping you through it.’

‘It happened eighteen years before we even met, Matt. It was in the past.’

‘Something like that is never in the past, Soph.’ He shakes his head. ‘And you of all people know that.’

I’m silent, caught between not knowing what to say, and not having the energy to respond. Besides, I went through this with Lily Murphy five hours ago and I don’t need round two.

He crosses his arms. ‘You think the rules don’t apply to you?’

I sigh. ‘What rules, Matt?’

‘Grief.’

Now it’s my turn to shake my head. ‘There are no rules, Matt. Not when it comes to grief.’

‘You’re wrong, Soph. There is one rule: you have to let yourself grieve, let yourself feel it.’

I don’t respond.

‘You couldn’t even tell your boyfriend, me, what happened all those years ago.’ He gives a hurt laugh. ‘I had to hear it on the news. The media said the murder of Ted Strawasky had been linked to three victims from the seventies. Then they said John Anderson of Shepparton in 1975…at first I didn’t believe it could possibly be your John. But I guess part of me always knew you were hiding something from me.’

‘I wasn’t hiding it, Matt.’

‘Sure you were, Soph. You kept your past between us like a wedge. You always kept me at a distance. At least now I know why.’

‘Cause this is all about you, right? How it makes you feel. How this works in regards to my relationship with you.’

A pause, then, ‘You’re right, Soph. It’s not about me. You’ll do what you want…as you always do.’ He gets his keys out of his pocket. ‘I do have one question for you, though.’

I roll my eyes.

‘How many tears have you shed since you heard the case was reopened?’

I gulp because I know the answer is not as many as I should…not enough. ‘It’s not something you have to worry about any more, Matt.’

He gives a few nods. ‘You’re right.’ His voice is softer, calmer. ‘I’ve moved on, Soph. I know we weren’t right for each other, but I still care about you.’

‘So you sat on my doorstep to attack me? That’s really caring.’

A silence. ‘This conversation didn’t quite turn out the way I’d planned.’ He glances down at his keys. ‘I came over to see if you were okay. But—’ He shrugs. ‘Guess I got kinda angry while I was waiting. And then seeing you looking so calm…it just reminded me of how shut off you are. It’s not healthy, Sophie.’

‘Let me worry about my mental health. Okay?’

He takes a breath, about to protest but then thinks the better of it. ‘Fair enough. But do me a favour…at least think about what I’ve said. For old time’s sake.’

He says it with a cheeky grin, and I can’t help but give a little smile back.

‘See you round.’ And with that, he ambles back down the drive.

By the time I’ve got my key in the door, I can hear Matt’s car starting. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in years and chances are our paths won’t cross again. We moved on a long time ago.

Lily Murphy and I spend most of the next day working on the profile, brainstorming back and forth, each working on separate documents before combining them into one central profile.

Part of drafting a profile is getting to know the victims. We’d already done most of that process last night, including looking at all the police reports and analysing the victim risk. Generally victims are classified as high-, moderate- or low-risk. High-risk victims include prostitutes and children, although for very different reasons. Prostitutes are accessible and vulnerable because of the type of work they do—they go to a secluded place with a man they don’t know. Children are also considered high-risk because for the most part they’re not street wise and they’re physically weak. Younger children can also be enticed with toys, balloons, pets, lollies, etc., and older children with gadgets, cigarettes or alcohol. Of course, there are also individual differences, and Lily and I agree that all our vics were low-risk for children. They were confident and physically fit—problem is, that’s not enough against an adult male predator.

From there, we look at the perpetrator’s decision-making during the crime and classify the offender on a variety of scales. For example, the offender also has a risk “rating”. Did he take risks during the crime? If so, why? Often these risks give us an insight into his personality. But in this case the only risky behaviour the perpetrator undertook was taking the children from their homes. It was a calculated risk—he stalked the victims, managed to silence them in some way first, and he chose hot nights and country towns for easy access. His body dump sites are low-risk—isolated state parks, with lots of unchartered bushland. And the fact that all the bodies, to date, have been found so long after death is a testament to his ability to plan.

We also have to assume he has an isolated location where he holds the victims, given he spends so much time with them, holding each boy for three to ten months—or possibly longer in the cases of the missing boys whose bodies were never found. Problem is, that’s not hard in rural Victoria. You’d only need an acre or two to ensure any screams or other noises were unheard by your closest neighbour. And if our perp’s property is nestled between farms, it’s possible we’re talking much larger distances between his house and the nearest surrounding homes.

Part of the profiling process is also crime assessment, where we reconstruct the crime to determine how things happened and how people behaved, focusing on the interaction between the victim and perp. Considering how long he holds the victims, our knowledge of that time frame is extremely limited. We know he stalks the boys first, possibly selecting them from various sporting events, then he abducts them from their homes on hot nights…and many, many months later he dumps the body in state parks. My gift has given me another small snapshot into his crimes—he holds at least two victims at once at times and keeps them in small, prison-like rooms. I also know he kills them by manual strangulation. It’s such a small portion of the whole crime, but it’s all we’ve got.

By the end of the day, we’ve drafted a profile that we’re both happy with and we’ve been able to get answers to some important questions—like we can now eliminate jail time, at least in Australia, as the reason for the long gap between John’s murder in 1978 and the next round of abductions in 2008. There are no ex-prisoners who match our scenario in terms of the time they were inside and the crimes they committed.

Sex:

Male

Age:

Option 1: 50-70

Based on the length of time that the perpetrator has been at large, we have to assume he’s at least fifty (if he started at 20) although it’s more likely he was in his mid- to late-twenties. This would place him in his mid- to late-sixties.

It’s also possible he has a submissive partner. This person could be younger—in fact, it’s possible this accomplice has changed from the first set of killings in the seventies to the most recent spate of murders and abductions. This accomplice may help with the execution of the abductions if our perpetrator is unfit or unhealthy in any way.

Option 2: 50s

If the current perpetrator was a submissive partner in the earlier abductions and murders, he would have been young at the time, and would now be in his fifties. Under this scenario the original perp is probably dead.

Race:

Caucasian

Type of offender:

- Organised. The abductions are well planned, with seemingly nothing left to chance. Even the most recent abduction probably involved the killer parking his car some way into the property and then walking to the house. The boys are silenced extremely quickly (either knocked unconscious or drugged) and the body dump sites are well chosen for their isolated nature.

- Sadistic paedophile (this is the only type of paedophile that tortures and kills their victims).

Occupation/ employment:

The killer is based in the country or travels extensively in rural Victoria for his job. Possible occupations include:

- Sales

- Local government (white collar like planning permission or blue collar occupations such as roadworks)

- Tech support worker of some description, possibly involved in infrastructure such as phone lines, electricity, etc.

- Truck driver or delivery/messenger service employee who travels for work

- Health worker (e.g. rural nurse working across Bendigo, Shepparton, Seymour and Euroa)

It’s difficult to say if the killer is a white collar or blue collar worker—either is possible and nothing from the crime scenes leads us in one particular direction.

Marital status:

Currently single.

Although many paedophiles are married, often with children, the sadistic paedophile is more likely to be a loner. In addition, unless the killer keeps the victims at a second property that only he has access to, there’s no way a partner and/or children could live with him and not know that the victims are being held for such a long time.

The gap in time between the killings could be explained by a perpetrator who married and had his own family between 1978 and 2008 and is now separated, divorced or widowed with no children living at home.

If he does have children, it’s likely he has one boy and a younger girl (in line with the sibling structure in most of the victims and missing persons).

Dependants:

Could have children, but they are no longer dependent on him in any way.

Childhood:

The offender probably had a traumatic and abusive childhood, definitely violent and quite possibly involving sexual assault. At some level he feels what he does with these victims is “normal” behaviour, so it’s likely an early male role model was violent.

Given his difficult childhood, he would have had problems at school and quite possibly run-ins with police during his childhood and adolescence.

He’s also drawn to young boys who are good at sports. This will mean one of two things: either he was extremely sporty himself as a boy and is targeting victims he sees as like himself; or otherwise he was always on the outside looking in at these types of individuals as a child. In this case, he’s choosing the boys because he wishes he was like them as a child.

It’s also possible he has a younger sister, in line with the sibling structure of the victims.

Personality:

He will be a quiet individual, someone who others perceive as being polite, honest and hardworking. However, people who know him well may have seen another side, including a temper. Given he keeps the boys for such varying times, I believe he kills them impulsively, in the heat of the moment.

He’s involved in sports in some capacity—mostly likely as a follower/fan although it’s possible his involvement is more official (coach, umpire, etc.). However, if he is involved in a team he wouldn’t target anyone this close to him.

Disabilities:

None.

Interaction with victims:

The perp stalks the victims, probably always keeping his distance. Given he abducts them in the middle of the night rather than charming or luring them away from their homes, the children are most likely strangers to him. However, his perception might be quite different—he probably feels that he knows them very well. Like the stalker who convinces himself or herself that a celebrity is their soul mate.

Remorse:

Sadistic paedophiles generally don’t feel remorse. However, the presence of underwear on all the victims could indicate feelings of guilt over his actions—guilt over the sexual abuse and/or the murders.

It’s also possible that the murder of each boy is motivated by remorse for the sexual assault. The offender is overcome by guilt at what he’s done to the boys and kills them in a fit of displaced rage. He’s angry at himself, but he displaces this anger onto the person he perceives has “caused” him to behave in such an appalling way. In his rage, he kills them. He could also see the murder of these boys as setting them free from the shameful acts he’s committed on them—better for them to be dead than live with the memory of months of sexual abuse.

Notes:

1. The underwear could also symbolise the fact that he no longer sees these victims as sexual or never has.

2. Sadistic paedophiles generally torture their victims until that torture culminates in murder/death. However, the lack of other injuries such as broken bones is in contrast to this theory.

3. Sadistic paedophiles generally hold their victims for a matter of minutes/hours before killing them—unlike this perp who holds them for months.

4. If the murders were committed by a two-person team, it’s likely the submissive personality type cared for the boys and possibly also restored their “modesty” by partially clothing them.

Home life:

He’s currently living as a single person, and living alone. His home life would be very basic and would revolve around his male captives. In addition, he probably doesn’t have a very active social life. He’s isolated geographically and emotionally.

Car:

Most likely a ute/pick-up truck—this would fit in well in rural Victoria while also being an ideal vehicle to transport the victims’ bodies to a state park or other location once he’s killed them. He could also use it to transport the unconscious victims after abduction. An SUV or four-wheel drive is also possible.

Intelligence:

Moderate IQ (100-110)

Education level:

High school or maybe TAFE

Outward appearance:

He fits into his environs, so he probably looks like many country males in their sixties—shorts and T-shirt in summer, and jeans and long-sleeved shirts in winter. Although he’s an organised offender, this doesn’t extend to overt neatness or any other trait that may be visible in his outward appearance.

Criminal background:

The killer has been abducting and killing young boys for over thirty-five years (and presumably sexually assaulting them during the captivity). It’s possible he’s spent time in jail to account for our missing twenty-eight years in that cycle, however given how well-planned his crimes are it’s more likely that he was in another country or that he stopped while having and raising his own family.

If the murders were committed by a two-man team, with the dominant person from the seventies dying, it’s possible only the dominant personality type has a criminal record.

In terms of a criminal record, he most likely had early run-ins with the police before he started abducting and killing young boys. At school, these offences could have included bullying younger children. As a young adult there may have been acts of physical assault.

Modus operandi (MO):

He stalks the victims for an indeterminate length of time, getting to know where they live and their routines. He then abducts them from their homes, targeting a hot night when security at the home will be lowered or non-existent. The boys are either physically knocked unconscious or drugged using a fast-acting substance so they can be taken from their homes quietly.

The boys are held for roughly three to ten months and then killed, possibly by manual strangulation. Their bodies are then dumped in isolated locations (to date, state parks).

Signature:

It’s difficult to know what the killer’s signature is, given how old the bodies are when we find them. However, if the underwear doesn’t indicate remorse, it’s possible it has some other significance to the killer and is a signature element.

Post-offence behaviour:

Again, it is difficult to know what his post-offence behaviour is given the lack of forensic evidence from the bodies. However, the fact that he keeps the boys for so long indicates he takes his time with them while they’re alive. Once he’s killed them, he probably disposes of the bodies immediately.

Media tactics:

The media and any specific reports in the news probably won’t affect the perpetrator’s behaviour in any way. He’s not driven by ego, although he probably has been watching the news coverage. Additionally, he’s a confident killer who probably feels untouchable—after all, he has been killing for over thirty-five years.

‘I know what Faulkner’s going to say already.’ Lily lets out a sigh.

‘I can imagine. I bet there are way too many instances of the words “probably” and “possibly” in it for him.’

‘Uh huh. Not to mention “either”…it means either this or that.’

‘It’s part of the job, I guess.’ And while it can be part of profiling, certainly this profile is one of the most ambiguous I’ve ever drafted. An ambiguity reflecting the complexity of this case.

‘Yeah.’ Lily sounds hesitant.

I change the topic. ‘How’d you go with New Zealand and the Asian countries?’

‘I’m starting with New Zealand first. It’s the most likely country given our perp would need a visa to work in other countries. The Kiwi ViCLAS analyst is looking into it for me. What about you? I bet you made a few calls.’

‘I did call one of my Interpol contacts in the South East Asian bureau. Nothing back yet.’

‘Well, at this stage I guess it’ll be tomorrow for New Zealand.’

I nod. It’s 6pm here, which means 9pm in New Zealand. If the New Zealand analyst thought Curtis Baker might only have hours to live he’d undoubtedly stay up all night. But we all know the most likely scenario: Baker’s life isn’t in any immediate danger and he would have already been sexually assaulted.

A scream sounds from another room and Curtis Baker huddles closer into the hard springs of the mattress. He doesn’t want to be next, but he knows it’s also wrong to wish it onto whoever’s in the room next to him.

He turns his head to the boarded up window and a few thin slices of light catch his eyes, burning. Morning? Evening? Has to be one or the other with the light so low. It’s hard to keep track of day or night, but he thinks it’s been two days since he woke up with a hand across his mouth. Next thing he knew he was here.

He turns his head into the light again, trying to figure out the time of day, but it’s impossible, so he buries his face into the mattress again, into the darkness.

Sometimes the blackness is better. He keeps his eyes firmly shut as he hears a key unlock his door.

Chapter 9

The domestic terminal of Melbourne Airport is in peak-hour madness, with business travellers flying in and out. Darren couldn’t get a direct flight, so the poor guy had to sit in Sydney for five hours once he’d cleared Customs. On the plus side, because he’s on a domestic flight I’ll be able to meet him right at the gate as he disembarks.

The security line to get to the terminals is hellishly long, but I brave it, keen to see Darren. It takes over twenty minutes to get through security, which means I end up getting to the gate just as the first batch of passengers is disembarking.

Suits rush past me to their Melbourne meetings, while I stand on tippy-toes for my first glance of Darren. After what seems like forever, and just about every passenger, I see him. His hair is messier than usual and his face a little pale. I wave my hands until he sees me, a big surprised grin erupting on his face.

He quickens his step and pulls me into him. ‘Hi, babe.’ He looks tired, and it reminds me that I’m still feeling sluggish from my own journey here. Well, that and my hectic schedule.

I lean my head into the side of his neck. ‘I’m so glad you could come.’

‘Me too,’ he says before kissing my cheek. ‘It took a lot to convince Rory to come back to work early. And I owe him some painting duties when I get back.’

I laugh. Darren’s colleague was using his vacation time to fix up his house. He came back a week early so Darren could race out to me.

We start walking, holding hands. ‘What’s the latest?’ he asks.

I’d told Darren about Curtis Baker and the missing boys from the past, but he’s been in transit while we were finalising the profile and contacting New Zealand and a few Asian countries. I fill him in on these details.

‘I’d say we’ll hear back from New Zealand soon. They’re three hours ahead, which makes it 11am.’

‘Sounds like you’re in the loop.’

‘Kinda. Via the Vic Police’s profiler, Lily Murphy.’

Darren nods, recognising her name and position. ‘I’m glad she’s helping you out.’

I let out a sigh. ‘Me too. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d stonewalled me like Homicide did.’

‘Any interesting dreams? Visions?’

‘Nothing new.’

‘It must be a relief that you don’t have to hide it from your folks any more.’

‘It is…I always wanted to tell them, just never knew how.’ Last time I’d spoken to Darren on the phone, I’d filled him in on mum’s revelation.

He gives another little nod, and I can tell he’s mulling something else over.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

He smiles. ‘Don’t have my game face on, huh?’

‘Nope. You’re probably too exhausted.’

He gives my hand a squeeze. ‘I was wondering if you’d tried going back to your first home. Or visiting John’s grave?’

I wince. I haven’t been to either location for many, many years.

‘No…I haven’t even considered that.’ I lead us through the gates and down the escalators to the baggage carousels. ‘I don’t think it’d help. I’m too close to John, and it’s unlikely I’ll get something now, after all these years.’

A little sigh escapes from his lips. ‘I think it’d be good for you, Soph. Even if it doesn’t trigger your gift. And maybe the fact that you’re so shut off when it comes to John is why you’ve never seen anything more about him or his murder.’

My jaw tightens. ‘I don’t think I want to, Darren. Okay?’

He brings us to a stop and puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘It’s not just you now. You have to think about the other boy.’

I flinch—he’s coming out swinging. He knows that I’m ruled by my sense of justice, my desire to right the wrongs and catch psychos before they do any more damage. And this guy sure as hell is doing more damage. He’s destroying so many lives. Are the Bakers on the same path as my mum and Mrs Strawasky?

I’m saved by the bell, literally, as a loud beep signals the start of the nearest conveyor belt. A quick glance shows me it’s for Darren’s Sydney-Melbourne flight, and I move towards it. But Darren doesn’t let it go that easily, grabbing my hand and giving a little tug until I turn back to him.

‘Just think about it, okay? You’re going to have to face this some time, you know. And now with John’s murderer out there again…now is the time.’

‘Let’s just get the bags.’

He crosses his arms. ‘Fine.’

The trip back to Camberwell is icy and I’m not sure if the freeze-dry is coming from me or Darren. Or maybe both of us. I was so looking forward to seeing him and to having him here and now this is how we’re spending our first hour together. The worst part is, it’s a recurring pattern…Lily, then Matt last night and now Darren. They’re all saying the same thing—that I’ve never dealt with John’s death. While I prefer to feign ignorance, I know they’re right. But even acknowledging that feels like a major chink in my armour. And if I admit it to them, to anyone, I’m afraid it’ll open a valve that can never be switched off. And to feel that pain every day? To feel so raw, every day? I don’t think I could do my job any more. I don’t think I’d be me.

Finally, when the silence feels like it’s about to crash in on me, Darren speaks.

‘Not exactly the best start to my first time in Oz.’

‘No.’

‘Look, I know maybe I was a little heavy handed, but I worry about how switched off you are. I understand it, I do. We all have to do it in this job to a certain extent.’ He takes a breath. ‘But this is your brother, Soph. Your flesh and blood.’

‘I know.’ I chomp down on my bottom lip and then catch myself out and stop. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been singing this song.’

‘Your folks been giving you a hard time?’

‘No, not them. Lily Murphy, and then my ex paid me a late-night visit last night.’

‘Last night?’ There’s a hint of jealousy in Darren’s voice.

‘Don’t worry, it was barely amicable. I never told him what happened to John. Well, I told him John died in a car accident.’

‘Ouch.’ Darren rubs his hand over sizable stubble. ‘That’s gonna hurt.’

‘Yup. And he heard it on the news first.’

Another ouch escapes Darren’s lips. ‘Makes me kinda wonder what you’re hiding from me.’

‘Come on, Darren. You know about my brother and my gift. That’s two out of two when it comes to my secrets and demons.’

He reaches his hand across to my knee. ‘Good.’

We spend the rest of the trip talking about the profile. Darren, with his extra experience in child abductions, agrees with every element but is also concerned by some of the problems: the time gap with no conclusive explanation, the fact that the boys are kept so long before being killed.

‘We had a rapist in Arizona a few years back who was displaying inconsistent behaviour—violent and aggressive with his victims and then remorseful afterwards.’

‘That’s not uncommon,’ I say. ‘Especially for a rapist.’

‘No. Many perps feel remorse after the anger subsides. But this seemed different and it was. The guy had multiple personality disorder. The stress of the rape would bring out an alter, who felt remorseful.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘That would explain how the boys are cared for, but still abducted and then killed.’ And explain it well. ‘But multiple personality disorder, MPD, is quite rare—particularly in males.’

‘That’s what the psychiatrist who worked the case at trial said. Rare, but still possible.’

‘True.’ I nod. ‘And this guy’s core was the rapist?’

When describing someone with MPD, we speak about their core personality, which is their “original” personality and their alter—or alters. Sufferers could have one core and one alter, or lots of alters, all within the one “host”.

‘The doc decided the core was the rapist, and the guy had two alters, one who helped him target the women and another alter who was very moralistic and good.’

‘Mmm. Interesting. We have been thinking about a two-man team, with one dominant and one submissive. But this would be that package in one person. One personality type is the sadistic paedophile that stalks and abducts the kids, and then another type could take over and protect the kids. The pattern goes on for months, until finally the sadistic personality takes it too far and kills the boy. The other personality feels guilty and covers the boys’ genitals to superficially hide the sadist’s actions.

‘Does it matter if it’s the core or the alter doing the actual killing?’

I shrug. ‘I guess if it’s the alter doing everything, a conviction may be tricky. The defence will claim their client’s not responsible and just needs medication.’

Darren blows out a long breath. ‘I’ve only worked the one case with MPD, but it sure was bizarre. I thought the guy was faking it.’

‘That’s a common problem. It’s hard for us to reconcile two or three totally different people effectively living in the same body. Even close family and friends find it difficult to believe.’

I turn into our driveway and the crunching of gravel under the tyres is a familiar and welcome sound.

‘Nice place.’

Camberwell is a leafy suburb, and it’s definitely one of Melbourne’s more expensive areas—although it’s family comfort rather than the chic and often snobby feel of South Yarra or Toorak. Our family home is dark red brick, quite big and on a large block of land. The gardens are more than well looked after, thanks to both Mum and Dad, and while many of the more traditional, flowery plants have made way for succulents in recent years, the large front area is still colourful and perfectly structured, giving a good first impression.

Before I’ve even put the car in park, the front door of the house opens…enter Mum and Dad.

‘Darren, hi!’ Mum moves quickly towards us and plants a kiss on Darren’s cheek. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Anderson. You too.’

‘Now, now, it’s Jan, remember.’

Darren smiles. ‘Sorry, Jan.’

Dad holds his hand out. ‘Welcome to Melbourne, Darren.’

They exchange a firm but friendly handshake. ‘Thanks, Bob.’

‘The flight’s a nightmare, isn’t it?’

Darren manages a small laugh. ‘It’s pretty bad, all right.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’ Mum gives him a wink. ‘Come on, let’s get you settled.’

Darren’s opted for two smaller bags, and he and Dad take one bag each.

‘We’re so glad you’re here, Darren.’ Mum, who’s leading the way, turns back to him.

‘Thanks.’ Darren hesitates, and I know why. He’s waiting for the right moment to say “Sorry about what’s happened”, but it’s too big a thing to simply say as you’re walking up a driveway.

‘I’ve set you up in the guest room.’

My brow furrows. ‘What?’ I shoot Mum a look and then see the big grin on her face.

‘I’m joking, of course.’ Mum hardly ever tries humour. Partly because when she does, it rarely succeeds. This one was a little better than a total belly flop, but only a little. She keeps us moving. ‘Darren probably wants a shower first, darling. Before we sit down?’

‘I know, Mum.’

Mum turns to Darren. ‘Make yourself at home, Darren. And take your time…we’ll catch up soon enough.’

‘Thanks. A shower would be real nice.’

As far as I’m concerned, a shower is an essential and first part of any jetlag recovery plan, especially when you’re talking about sitting on a plane for the best part of twenty-four hours.

I lead Darren down the hall to my bedroom. It still feels a little strange being in my family home as an adult. It’s not like my room’s pink with Barbie dolls everywhere—I’ve even got a double bed. But it still makes me feel like a little girl. And it’ll be even stranger to have Darren lying in bed next to me tonight.

‘Here you go, then.’ Dad leaves the bag in the doorway. I’d forgotten he was behind us.

‘Thanks.’

Darren manoeuvres one bag into the corner and heaves the other one on top of the bed. Opening it up, he takes out a bath bag. ‘Should I keep growing it?’ He rubs his jaw line.

‘Nah. Too scratchy.’

‘A beard doesn’t suit me, anyways.’ He takes his razor and shaving foam out of the bag.

I’ve never seen Darren with more than a five o’clock shadow, but I can’t imagine him with any kind of serious facial hair—full beard or goatee.

‘Here you go.’ I hand him the dark blue towel Mum had put on the bed early this morning. ‘And just use whatever soap or shampoo you want in the bathroom. Mum and Dad have an en-suite, so it’s all my stuff or guest stuff.’

I take him through to the bathroom down the hallway, and once he’s in the shower, I join Dad at the kitchen table for a cup of coffee and the day’s paper. Dad hands me the business section of The Age and I hand him the front pages from the table—an exchange we’ve done many times over the years. Characteristically, Mum is in the kitchen.

Before I actually start reading the paper, I check my phone again. Nothing. Even though it’s not even 10am, I’ve already checked it five times, thinking maybe I’d somehow missed the call from Lily Murphy…but so far nothing.

‘What are you making, Mum?’

‘Scones.’

‘Yum.’ Mum’s scones are to die for.

‘You think Darren will like them?’

I raise my eyebrows. Good question. ‘Scones aren’t big in America, Mum. But I can’t see how anyone could resist your scones with homemade raspberry jam and cream.’

‘Thanks, darling.’

I give her a little nod, knowing Mum likes to care for people with food. Even in these circumstances there’d be a part of her that wanted to welcome Darren with a big home-cooked meal. She’s got to wait a few hours for that, so scones will suffice in the meantime.

Darren doesn’t take long to shower, shave and dress and when he emerges somewhat hesitantly he looks more like the Darren I know—clean-shaven, dark hair a little neater and a little…perkier.

‘I followed the voices.’ He grins.

‘Sorry. I’ll give you a quick tour before we sit down to some of Mum’s home baking.’ Not that our house is huge, but it’s always a little awkward wandering around a house you don’t know.

‘Sounds good. Home baking…I’m still pretty full from the cardboard aeroplane food.’ He pats his belly.

I take his hand. ‘I’m sure you can find room.’

We quickly move through the house, and by the time we get back to the kitchen, the aroma is starting to spread from the kitchen to the hallway.

‘Smells good, Mum.’

She peers in the oven. ‘Almost done. Who’s for coffee?’

Darren, Dad and I give an enthusiastic yes.

I’m about to sit down when my phone rings. I snatch it from my pocket. Private number. ‘This could be Lily Murphy,’ I say before answering the phone. ‘Sophie Anderson.’

‘Hi, Soph. It’s Lily.’

‘Hi.’ I move out of the kitchen/living area and into the study. ‘How’d you go?’

‘I just heard back from New Zealand. No murders that match our timeframes or profile, and only three missing boys that fit our criteria.’

‘Three? Not very many to cover 1981 to 2007.’

‘No. Especially given they had one in 1981 and two in 1982.’

‘What?’ I sink into the leather desk chair. ‘Man, this is confusing.’

‘I know.’

‘And they’re sure?’

‘The guy checked it several times, going out of the ViCLAS system and into the old hard copy files on missing kids.’

I blow out some air. ‘So where to from here?’

Lily lets out a sigh, too. ‘Asia, I guess. See if we can’t account for those missing years. I’ve also asked my NZ contact to check the prison records.’

I nod. ‘In case he was incarcerated over there.’

‘Uh huh. And if there really is a gap and no prison time or overseas activity to account for it, we have to consider a perp who had some sort of debilitating injury but has recovered.’

‘Mmm…but what?’

‘Coma?’

I bite my lip. ‘A long time to spend in a coma and then suddenly come out of it.’

‘Yes, but it has happened. And then there’s our two-person theory, with the dominant personality dying and the submissive recently finding a new recruit.’

‘I’ve got another possibility. What if the time gap is because he was better? Maybe our perpetrator has got multiple personality disorder and between 1982 and 2007 he was on meds that kept the alters at bay.’

‘MPD…I know it looks good on TV, but I’ve never come across it before.’

‘Me neither. But my boyfriend has.’

‘Your Yank?’

‘Uh huh. He just flew in.’

‘What was the case?’

‘Rape. The rapist was the core personality but he was caught through a remorseful alter.’

‘Mmm…I guess we need to flag it as a possibility.’

‘Agreed,’ I say.

Silence for a few beats before Lily takes a deep breath. ‘I need to give you a heads up, Soph.’

‘Uh huh.’ It can only be Faulkner. Or maybe something to do with John. Like an exhumation. My stomach flips at the thought.

‘This morning Faulkner told me to say hello to you.’

My body relaxes—Faulkner I can deal with. ‘So he knows we’re working together.’

‘Process of elimination, I suppose. Despite my denial, he either knows or suspects it was me who told you about Curtis Baker.’

‘Don’t worry, Lily. I can handle Faulkner.’

‘Well, tread lightly. For all our sakes.’

I get the message loud and clear—it’s not just me on the line here. Pushing my way into this case may mean that Victoria Police would never hire me again. But that’s fine…I like LA. Lily, on the other hand, doesn’t have many career options. If Faulkner had the contacts to get the head of Homicide gig, who knows what else he’s capable of. At the very least he could make her life hell, and he may be able to push her out altogether.

‘I understand, Lily. And I really appreciate what you’re doing. For me and my family.’

‘At least one person in this equation’s happy.’

‘I’m sorry, Lily. Sorry to put you in this position, but I can’t just sit on the sidelines.’

‘I know. And that’s why I’m keeping you in the loop.’

I wait a few beats before changing the topic. ‘Did you find any links with the sisters?’

‘Not yet. But I’m still working on it. Actually, I’ve got a list of questions to ask you. Want them over the phone now or I can email them through.’

I think about Darren and my parents waiting for me. ‘Send them through. You’ve got my Hotmail account?’

‘Sure. And the computer techs are finished with Ted Strawasky’s computer. Nothing. It doesn’t look like our perp contacts them online. At least he didn’t in the case of the Strawasky boy.’

Another dead end.

After I thank her again for sticking her neck out for me, we hang up and I sit in the study chair, rocking back and forth slightly, focusing on the New Zealand connection. Our guy must have been in New Zealand from 1981 to 1982, but then what happened to him? I stare vacantly at the painting on the wall, an ugly bushland scene. I don’t like the painting—it’s old-fashioned and the scenery turns my stomach. The Australian bushland holds nothing but pain and suffering for me. Nothing but thoughts of John and his killer.

I take a deep breath and move back into the hallway. I’m about to join the others when the sound of my name stops me in my tracks. Hovering in the doorway, I listen.

‘That’s what you’ve got to understand about Sophie.’ Mum’s hand is on top of Darren’s. ‘That monster…he didn’t just take our son from us, Darren. He took a piece of our daughter, too.’

Chapter 10

I hit send on the email to Lily Murphy, hoping we’ve covered everything. It was difficult to remember my activities and schedule from when I was eight years old and I imagine the other sisters have had a similar experience. Still, with the help of mum and dad I was able to answer all of Lily’s questions, most of which centred on my school and after-school activities. So, will Lily discover that all sisters attended ballet classes at Somers Dance School? Or maybe we crossed the killer’s path during a family holiday or outing around that time. We included everything we could think of, even the fact that John and I used to swim in the neighbour’s dam—not that I think that’s relevant. I’d also desperately tried to remember if I’d noticed anything odd around that time—a stranger watching us, a man asking me questions about John. It felt strange looking back at those few weeks and questioning everyone and everything. Even neighbours, relatives and friends were under scrutiny…all suspects in my mind. But if something happened, I can’t remember it.

‘Done?’ Darren’s sitting in an armchair in the study, looking exhausted.

‘Uh huh.’ I stare out the window. ‘I want to catch the guy, no matter what, but this…’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know if I could cope if he found John through me.’

Darren’s silent for a bit, and then says, ‘I know it’s clichéd, but let’s cross that bridge if or when we come to it, huh?’

I take a deep breath and blow it out, purposely diverting my gaze from the painting of the bush.

‘So…you ready?’

Another deep breath on my part. ‘We’ll go later. I think we should study the files first.’

‘Come on, Soph. You can’t avoid it forever.’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t go, Darren. I just can’t.’ I stand up and walk over to the window.

Soon Darren’s arms are around me. ‘Maybe you’ll feel better. Did you ever consider that?’

‘Better? I doubt it.’ I lean back into him.

‘It might help to induce a vision.’

I shake my head again. ‘I can’t face him. Not until we’ve got this monster.’

Darren’s quiet but his arms squeeze a little harder. ‘Okay. I get it.’

‘I’ll go after…as soon as we’ve got this bastard I’ll visit John’s grave. And then I can tell him it’s finally over.’

‘What if we don’t get him?’ Darren whispers quietly, barely able to voice it.

‘We’ll get him. I can…feel it.’

‘Is that normal cop instincts or something more?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’ God I hope it’s an honest gut feeling, or my gift. Otherwise it’s nothing more than blind hope. Now this has all been stirred up again, I don’t think I could cope if the guy slipped through our fingers. I shudder at the thought.

‘Cold?’ Darren snuggles into my neck.

‘No. Just…’ I turn around and look into Darren’s eyes. ‘Maybe I am deluding myself. It’s been thirty years, what if we still can’t find this guy?’

‘Trust your instincts, Soph.’ He runs a hand along my jaw. ‘They’re pretty good, you know.’

I sigh. ‘Not when it comes to John.’

Silence.

I notice the dark circles under Darren’s eyes. ‘You look tired, Darren. Do you want a rest?’

His face scrunches. ‘Is that a good idea? Shouldn’t I keep in this time zone?’

Morning tea and going through Lily’s questions has taken us the better part of three hours but it’s still early. ‘You could have a quick nap now. Better to have a sleep and make it through until nine or ten tonight than to crash at six.’

He nods. ‘Okay. But wake me up in an hour and a half and then we’ll go through the case files together.’

‘Deal.’

Once Darren’s settled in my room, I head back into the living room.

‘Mum, where are our old photo albums?’

‘Of John, you mean?’

I gulp and nod. I don’t know if Mum ever looks at them, but I don’t. The pictures around the house are enough for me.

‘Sit down, honey. I’ll get them for you.’

I grab a glass of water and wait at the kitchen table. Darren’s right—maybe bringing up John and that painful part of my past will trigger a vision. And I need to do anything and everything I can to bring my brother’s killer to justice.

A few minutes pass before Mum appears with four large photo albums in her arms.

I jump up. ‘Sorry, Mum. I’ll help.’ I take the top two off the pile and together we bring them back to the kitchen table.

‘Are you hoping to find something in here?’ Mum looks sadly at the albums. Her boy’s life, now only snapshots.

‘Not really. I’m actually hoping to induce a vision.’

She runs her hand through my hair.

Since Mum’s revelation around her knowledge of the family’s gift, we’ve spoken about it a few times but I have to confess I haven’t been exactly forthcoming. Even after all these years it still seems flaky to talk about it. I’m much happier in the world of police procedures, forensics and, of course, profiling. Some cynics feel profiling is subjective mumbo jumbo, but there’s an objective and scientific structure behind it. My gift, on the other hand, is still a leap of faith that I sometimes have trouble making sense of.

‘Can I do anything to help?’ Mum asks.

‘Not really.’

She nods, a little disappointed. ‘A snack or drink perhaps?’

I smile. ‘I’m fine, Mum.’

She nods. ‘This is the first album. We’ve got more photos, of course. But I had to cull…at the time I didn’t realise…’

I bite my lip. ‘How could you, Mum?’

She takes a deep breath. ‘Your Dad and I looked at these a few days ago. After the police told us.’ She sinks into the chair. ‘He was so young, such a beautiful young boy. He’d be forty-one now.’

I grimace. I rarely think of John as anything but a kid. In fact, the only time I think of him as anything but eleven is on his birthday. But I can never picture him as an adult.

‘Do you think about him much, Mum?’

She puts her hand on mine. ‘Every day. I say good morning to him as soon as I wake up and goodnight before I go to bed.’

I think about the photo of John on Mum’s dresser and imagine her talking to our John, and a tear trickles down my face.

‘I’m going to find whoever did this, Mum. I’m going to…’ I want to say kill him. That’s what I feel, but instead I say, ‘…make sure he pays.’

She nods slowly. ‘I know that’s important to you, darling. But not to me.’

‘How can you say that, Mum?’ Part of me wants her to fight harder, be more consumed with rage. But maybe it’s just not in her.

‘I’ll be happy if or when you find this monster. But I won’t be happy for me or John. Nothing can bring John back, Sophie. I’ll be happy for you, because I know how important it is for you. And I’ll be happy for the other boys and mothers who’ll be spared what we went through.’

‘I just…I don’t understand. Don’t you want revenge?’

She strokes my hair, her calmness a stark contrast to my bubbling rage. ‘We’re different, Soph. I let go of my anger a long time ago.’

‘So you did feel it?’

‘Of course, darling. But you were my baby girl…you were eight. I couldn’t show you then. And now…the anger’s gone. As I hope it will be for you one day. Hopefully soon.’

‘I don’t think I can do this now, Mum.’ I glance down at the photos. ‘I just feel so…’

‘You’re upset. You’re mad. Flick through the albums, darling. You never know, they might cheer you up. It’s not all negative—we still have these photos, and our memories of him.’

I want to protest, but she’s gone before I can say or do anything. Leaning back in the chair I look at the four albums spread out on the table. They’re all the same dark blue and on the front of each one is a small plate, engraved with our surname and the year range the album covers. I’m about to flip open the first album when my phone beeps. Lily Murphy’s sent me a brief text: No matches from NZ jail records.

I rest my head in my hands. Where was he for all those years? He must be dead. This must be the work of an old partner. Or am I missing something obvious? But instead of dwelling on that question, I go back to the albums. They start with John as a baby…coming home from the hospital, his christening, sleeping, crawling, then his first birthday, walking. These are memories I don’t have, yet as I flick through the photos I feel like I’m there, experiencing my parents’ joy at their first child. In the first few pages of the second album I make an appearance. There are photos at the hospital and John’s all grins. Moving through the albums is a flashback into our early lives. Moments I’d almost forgotten. Each photograph is a frozen moment in time, but along with it I see the outskirts of the photos. The memories of us dressing up, swimming, going to the US to see Dad’s family—although I remember Disneyland more than the family visit.

Some of the last photos are of John swimming and I see him, like I’m there, but I’m not me. I take a deep breath and let myself move fully into the vision—despite the intense fear of what I might see.

The boys line up on the block and I can see the competitive spirit burning in him. They touch their toes, ready, and then the starting pistol echoes through the small swimming stadium. The boys dive off their blocks; some quicker off the mark than others. He doesn’t disappoint and soon he’s in front, reminding me that he’s stronger than his little body looks. Swimming could have been his future…but it’s not the future I’ve got planned.

I’m disgusted by this man’s predatory thoughts and can’t stand the fact that he was watching and thinking about John. However, my repulsion and personal stake is actually kept at bay by thoughts of what he’s doing now. Or what his partner’s doing. Mum’s right—he can’t have anyone else. It’s got to end, now.

‘What was it, honey?’ Mum’s leaning in the doorway to the hall only a few metres away, but her voice is barely audible, like she’s not sure she wants to know.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘A while. You were…out. For a few minutes.’

A few minutes? It seemed like seconds.

‘John was at a swimming meet. He was watching him.’

Mum nods slowly, her face screwed up in pain. Do I see a hint of anger? It’s hard to tell with Mum.

She takes a deep breath and regains her composure. ‘You said all the boys were sporty.’

I nod. ‘Yup. If he doesn’t use sporting events to find his victims, he certainly watches the boys at them.’

Silence, and then Mum asks if I’m hungry—an abrupt shift, but one that I’m more than happy with.

‘Mum, you offered me food ten minutes ago.’

She gives a genuine, soft laugh. ‘You’ve been looking at photos for nearly two hours, darling.’

‘What?’

‘So, are you hungry?’

I stand up. ‘No. But I better wake up Darren.’

She nods. ‘Yes, it’s better if he doesn’t sleep too long. And we’ll have an early dinner.’

‘Okay, Mum.’ I resist the temptation to shake my head at Mum’s obsession with feeding us.

In my bedroom, Darren’s in a dead sleep and it takes lots of talking and nudging to rouse him.

‘What time is it?’ His voice is groggy.

‘Just after three.’

‘Whoa. I feel like shit.’

‘Uh huh. Force yourself up, and you’ll feel better soon.’

‘Really?’

I smile and give him a kiss. ‘Trust me.’

Even with my words of wisdom it takes Darren nearly five minutes to actually sit up on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, man. You sure I can’t lie back down for a bit?’

‘No way. Then you’ll never get to sleep tonight.’

He nods, his eyelids bobbing up and down heavily. ‘Okay.’ He stands up.

‘I’ll get you a drink.’ Jetlag’s always more pronounced if you’re dehydrated and two coffees with the scones wouldn’t have helped.

‘I’ll be out in a sec,’ he says, pulling on a T-shirt.

‘Okay.’

Less than a minute later Darren joins me in the kitchen, wearing jeans and the T-shirt.

‘Water okay?’

‘Sure.’ He’s got a funny smile on his face and I suddenly realise—I’m fussing like Mum does.

I give him the water and whisper quietly enough that Mum won’t hear. ‘Sorry, guess Mum’s rubbing off on me.’

‘Hey, no complaints from me.’

I narrow my eyes, then realise Darren’s baiting me. He knows fussing in the kitchen isn’t part of the package deal with me. Mind you, if truth be told, I loved it as a kid. Loved the homemade cookies in my lunchbox, the freshly made meals every night, the weekends full of yummy, healthy food with none of the crap you get in foods now. I sigh…maybe I am turning into my Mum.

‘What are these?’ Darren’s looking at the photo albums.

‘Photos of John,’ I say.

Darren nods and looks at me more closely. ‘How’d you go?’

The question has two meanings—how did I cope emotionally and did I see anything.

‘I had a vision from the killer’s perspective. He was at one of John’s swim meets.’

Darren keeps his face blank, probably more for Mum’s benefit than mine. But I don’t want to think about it either.

I take a deep breath. ‘We can start whenever you’re ready.’

Darren nods.

‘We’ll have dinner at six, Darren. But you’ll probably need a snack, yes?’

‘Um…’ Darren rubs his belly. ‘I have woken up a bit hungry, actually.’

Mum gives him a big smile and it makes me wonder if Darren really is hungry or if he’s just trying to make Mum happy.

‘Cheese and biscuits? Dips? Or a sandwich perhaps?’

‘A sandwich would be great, thanks.’

Within minutes Darren’s eating a ham and cheese sandwich and I’ve somehow ended up with a few crackers and cheese on a small plate. Once we’re done, Darren clears the plates into the dishwasher, despite Mum’s protests.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go through everything together.’

In the study, I close and lock the door before spreading out the crime-scene photos. It’s by no means complete, but it’s as much as I’m ever going to get my hands on, especially with Faulkner heading up Homicide. I also write all the murders and missing persons out on index cards—a whiteboard would be better for a visual representation of our timeline, but Dad doesn’t have one. Instead, each victim gets a small card, with his details, his status (missing or deceased), his age, location and a quick note about any pertinent details, like the fact that Ted Strawasky’s behaviour had changed a few weeks before his abduction. The last index card is for Curtis Baker. If we can save this one…this victim. Maybe it’d somehow make up for all the others.

‘I hope we find him.’ I put a photo of Curtis that the Bakers gave me underneath his index card.

‘Me too.’

‘Mum said she doesn’t care about justice for John. About making the killer pay. She only wants to make sure it doesn’t happen to other families.’

‘She’s an amazing woman, your Mom.’

‘Amazing? Her complacency makes me want to shake her, yell at her. This man took everything from her, from us, and she’s okay with it?’

‘It’s not complacency, Soph. You know how differently people react to these situations. And when have you ever seen a victim’s family thirty years after the fact? I think your Mom’s dealt with it very well.’

‘By sticking her head in the sand.’

He rests his hands on his thighs. ‘No, Soph. That’s her daughter’s coping mechanism.’

I scrunch up my face. I want to cry. ‘That was low.’

‘I’m trying everything I can to make you see sense.’

Silence.

I look at the photo of Curtis Baker again and Darren follows my gaze.

‘When it comes to serial cases like this,’ he says, ‘the only way to keep your sanity is to think of the ones you’ve saved, the potential victims, and not all the ones you could have or should have saved.’

‘Yes, that’s the attitude we need to have. To cope with what we see in law enforcement. But it’s not the way a mother should deal with it.’

‘Don’t you see, Soph? She’s done with anger, with denial, with depression. She’s accepted it. There’s nothing you or your Mom can do to change what happened to John, and she knows that.’

‘Maybe if I’d told people about my nightmares. Taken it seriously.’

‘You were eight…you couldn’t save him. Besides, the killer would have found a way to get to John. You know that. Guys like this…once they select their victims, they don’t just change their minds or move onto another target. Short of fleeing the country, I doubt anything or anyone could have saved John.’

Part of me sees the logic, knows that what Darren is saying is right, but there’s still a big part of me that feels like I failed John. He was my brother and I knew something horrible had happened to him. Helplessness washes over me and bile rises as my thoughts turn to the man’s hands closing around John’s throat—the vision I’ve replayed so many times. I push the imagery away and the nausea fades, ever so slightly. I was eight…and Darren’s right about predators fixating on specific targets. Although they may have general victim types, once they’ve chosen the one, not much stands in their way. That’s why I had to go into law enforcement…to be the person standing between some sicko and his next victim.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ I eventually say.

‘I am right. And you have to accept that, like your Mom has.’

I’m silent for a bit before I say. ‘There is one thing…one thing that would have saved John.’

Darren looks puzzled.

‘If the killer had been caught before he targeted John.’

‘Yes.’ Darren leans back, obviously relieved. ‘And that’s all we can try to do now. Catch him.’

We return our focus to the photos and notes sprawled across the floor.

‘I heard back from Lily Murphy. No one in the New Zealand prison system matches our dates.’

‘The gap.’

I nod. ‘Maybe you’re onto something with the multiple personality disorder theory. If meds kept the alters at bay and then something happened a few years ago that meant he went off his meds…’

‘Some sort of stressor could cause him to abandon medication.’

A stressor sets off lots of criminal sprees—especially things like relationship break-ups and losing your job. So what did it for our guy? Or are we talking about the submissive personality type from an old duo, who’s teamed up with a new partner?

I’m just about to discuss this when my phone rings. Private number again.

‘Sophie Anderson.’

‘Soph, it’s Lily Murphy.’

‘Hi.’

‘We might have something…a victim who survived.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t get too excited. It’s all very vague at the moment, but I knew you’d want to know straight away.’

‘Yes, yes. Go on.’

‘My contact in New Zealand just rang me back. He’s been going through all the hard copy files again, just to see if he’d missed anything, and there was something strange.’

‘Yes?’ I try to keep the desperation out of my voice but I doubt I manage it.

‘In 1982 they found a boy estimated to be eleven or twelve wandering by the side of the road just outside of Dunedin. It was twelve degrees, but he was wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. An elderly couple picked him up and took him to a hospital. The police interviewed the boy when he was well enough, but he couldn’t tell them his name, age, where he was from...nothing. Didn’t even know how he got onto the road.’

‘So maybe he was a victim.’

‘Exactly. The strange thing is, the police never found the boy’s parents, never found out who he was.’

Chapter 11

Darren leans forward, obviously realising from my face that something’s up. I switch the phone to speaker.

‘Do they know now? Does he remember what happened?’ I ask.

‘Not sure. The contact’s chasing him down as we speak. After he was found, he went into foster care for three years—one family during that time, one other child, apparently very warm and loving towards him. After what he must have gone through, I hope he found a happy life.’

If he was the victim of a sadistic paedophile, the trauma would affect him forever. But with lots of love and a little luck...maybe he could live a relatively normal life. At first it was probably just as well he didn’t remember. But now—now we need him to remember.

I chew on my bottom lip, wondering who this child-turned-man is today. ‘Did he take on the foster parents’ family name?’

‘Uh huh. They chose Anthony as the first name and the last name is Wake. I’m also running his name over here. Just in case.’

‘Good idea.’ I pause. ‘Anthony Wake.’ I let the name roll off my tongue and try to imagine how I’ll feel when I talk to him. To interview someone who may have experienced what John and the others went through...and lived to tell the tale. ‘He could break the case.’

‘If he remembers, or we can get him to remember, he could at least give us a sketch of the suspect, or what he looked like back then.’ Lily’s voice is full of hope. A concrete lead.

‘A face...’ I say softly, finding it hard to impose a real face onto the shadows from my nightmares. ‘And if he remembers, he’d certainly be able to tell us if there was one perp or two.’

It’s possible Anthony Wake’s kept the painful memories repressed all these years. And if that’s the case, drudging up old memories of unspeakable trauma is probably the last thing he wants to do. He managed to repress everything about himself, even his name, his parents...if he had to blank everything out to cope with what he’d been through, what sort of a man would he be now? Could he have moved on? Become a successful person and a family man?

More likely, his demons have driven him to drugs or alcohol to keep up with the numbing effect of repressed memories. These thoughts puncture my hope. Please let him give us something.

Lily’s voice brings me back. ‘Hold on. I’ve got a call on my mobile.’

I listen to Muzak while she takes the call, hoping it’s about Anthony Wake. It shouldn’t take long to locate the foster parents, locate Anthony Wake from a driver’s licence or car registration. Most men in their forties have a car or licence, but if the investigators strike out on that front, maybe they’ll find a criminal record or tax file number.

‘God I hope Anthony Wake is alive,’ I say, suddenly realising it’s possible he’s dead. To have such a good lead snatched away from us...after thirty years of wondering and anguish?

Darren holds my hand. ‘She’s probably talking to New Zealand now.’

I nod. ‘I know. I hope they’ve found him...and alive.’

‘Me too.’

‘Soph?’ Lily Murphy comes back on the line.

‘Uh huh.’ I gulp, hoping it’s inaudible to Lily.

‘We’ve found him. Our end.’

Our end? ‘In Australia?’

‘Uh huh.’

Emigrating from New Zealand to Australia is quite common, especially in some occupations where Australia’s larger population provides more career opportunities.

‘Where?’

‘Melbourne.’

‘Shit.’ I pause, my mind flitting through all the possibilities. What are the chances of getting this lucky? Could it truly be a coincidence? ‘You think it’s luck or something more ominous?’

‘That thought’s crossed my mind. I’ve got an address and I’m heading there now with Detectives Shaw and Danahay.’

‘Any chance I can tag along?’

‘Might be able to swing it because I don’t think Faulkner’s coming. Beneath him to question a witness. He only went to the Baker’s home because he knew there’d be press there eventually.’

I nod, but in some ways it’s fair enough. The media prefer to speak to someone as high up the chain as possible, and having the head of Homicide on-site makes a statement. However, the media doesn’t know about Anthony Wake. Not yet, and hopefully not for a while. I certainly don’t want them getting a whiff of him until we can determine if he’s a victim and witness, or a possible suspect in these latest crimes. A victim of the perp who was active in the seventies becoming the perp in these latest abductions is a possibility we have to explore. Although it wouldn’t explain how the perp was able to dispose of Ted Strawasky’s body so close to where John was found so many years ago.

‘Go to Wake’s house and then call me. I’ll try to smooth it out with Shaw.’

‘I think he’ll be okay with it.’

‘Yeah, me too. But just call me before you come in. That way I can confirm Faulkner’s not on scene and not about to turn up.’

‘Sure.’

‘And bring your Yank if you like.’

I give Darren an awkward grin. ‘You’re on speaker, Lily. He’s here with me now.’

‘Oh...oops. Sorry, Darren isn’t it?’

Darren leans forward. ‘Hey, Lily.’

‘Hi. Um…Yank’s a term of endearment, you know.’

Darren smiles. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘Sorry. I’ll see you guys there in thirty. The address is 15 Viewbank Road, Eltham. You might even beat us there.’

Eltham’s an almost rural-style suburb in Melbourne’s north-east suburbs, which gives Lily an extra ten or so kilometres more to travel than us.

‘See you soon.’ I hang up and go straight to Dad’s safe and take out my 9mm gun.

‘What are you doing, Soph?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing? It’s not that uncommon for the victim to become the perpetrator, you know. And the fact that Anthony Wake now lives in Victoria, right where the abductions and murders are happening...’

‘But one of the bodies was dumped in the exact location as your brother. The only person who’d be able to replicate that is the original killer or maybe law enforcement.’

Darren’s bringing up one of my stumbling points, and it’s a good one, but not good enough for me to even consider losing the 9mm. ‘I know.’ I shrug, loading the gun and taking the spare clip with me. ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’

Darren hesitates. ‘You got a license for that?’

‘Of course, Darren. You really think I’d stash an unlicensed gun in my father’s safe?’

His eyes narrow. ‘Okay, let’s put it another way. Are you allowed to bring it with you? Carry it concealed? You said the gun laws here were tight.’

‘They are.’ I chew on my bottom lip. ‘My license is for a handgun being used for target shooting, at an approved shooting rage. But I could be going to a shooting range after visiting Anthony Wake, right?’

Darren winces. ‘Soph…’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t like where this is going.’

‘Don’t worry, Darren. I’m not going to use it.’ Tucking the gun into the small of my back I make for the door. ‘Let’s go.’

He grabs my arm. ‘Give me your word you won’t fire…unless it’s self defence.’ He’s staring intently into my eyes, our faces incredibly close.

I blink once…Darren knows I won’t break my word. ‘Okay.’

He nods slowly, still studying my face, but I can see the tension leaving his shoulders. ‘Don’t forget, Soph, this guy isn’t worth it. You can’t do that to yourself, or your folks.’

‘I know.’ The last thing I want is to end up in jail for taking the law into my own hands. It’d screw everyone’s life up.

He releases my arm. ‘What are you going to tell your folks?’

I stop in my tracks. I don’t want to get their hopes up, but I also don’t want to keep them in the dark.

‘I’ll tell them we’re going to The Well to do some shopping.’

We wind our way around Main Road. ‘We’re close now.’ Darren nods, sensing my nervous energy and excitement.

Eltham’s only twenty-five kilometres from the city, but parts of it are extremely rural with a more arty and country feel. In the seventies it was an outer suburb and home to many prominent artists. Now, with the urban expanse gobbling up land all around it, Eltham has become a blend of the old and the new, the artists and the young white-collar families. Eltham is also home to the iconic Montsalvat, a twelve-acre estate with stunning European architecture and a thriving artist retreat. It has many artists in residence and is the home of the Montsalvat Jazz Festival every January—and an extremely popular wedding venue.

My gun’s now in my handbag, for comfort more than anything else. Lily Murphy won’t be armed, but Detectives Shaw and Danahay will both have easy access to their guns. Can’t say having mine tucked away in my handbag is reassuring, but I know the chances I’ll need it are slim.

Viewbank Road is nestled in the older section of Eltham, which consists of mostly weatherboards and larger blocks of land, rather than the more suburban-style houses put up in the past ten to twenty years. We drive up the small hill and cruise by number fifteen, before hanging a U-turn and parking several doors down.

Anthony Wake’s house is a traditional weatherboard that’s well looked after. The boards look like they’ve been freshly painted or perhaps replaced with the fake boards that are made of vinyl but look like the real deal. The white boards are offset by charcoal grey doorframes and trim, and a large wooden deck extends a few metres out the front. The block of land is steep, so the front of the deck is supported by long posts, roughly three metres high. The house seems quiet, but we’ll have to park for a little longer before we can be certain that Wake’s not home.

‘How do you feel?’ Darren asks.

I twist the ring on my little finger. ‘I have no idea. I’ve got so much adrenaline, excitement and fear coursing through my body I don’t know what’s what.’

‘Sounds about right.’

To a certain extent those sensations are felt by any cop on a case with the scent of a big break. But for me, this case, everything’s compounded by about a thousand...or maybe a million.

‘How long you think they’ll be?’

I shrug. ‘Don’t know. But I said I’d call Lily, so I’ll do that now and see how far away they are.’

I dial Lily’s mobile number and within a few rings she picks up. ‘You there?’ she says immediately.

‘Uh huh. Out front.’

‘And?’

‘Doesn’t look like he’s home. But I can’t be sure yet.’

‘Okay. Sit tight. We’ve got more info on Anthony Wake, including the fact that he’s single and works in Ivanhoe. He’s probably still at work.’

Lily or Detective Shaw would have assigned someone to gather info on Anthony Wake, looking for anything and everything that could help us. ‘What else did you find?’

‘Doesn’t look like he’s ever married, unless it was in New Zealand or somewhere else. First logged entering Australia in 1990. Worked here for a year in a few cafes and then went back to New Zealand. Returned to Australia in 2000, obviously with some sort of qualification and professional work experience because he’s working as a draftsman for an architecture firm.’

I digest the information. He came out to live here in 2000, eight years before the first abduction in the more recent spate of child abductions and murders. And he’s based in Melbourne, not the country. These two things make it more likely that his usefulness for us will be as a past victim. ‘Any links to Bendigo, Shepparton, Seymour or Euroa?’ I ask.

‘Not that we’ve found. Only one property in his name, the Eltham one.’

I don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed. I knew this man couldn’t have been responsible for John’s death, but he could have been involved in the three boys who’ve disappeared or been found dead in the past three years. I would have preferred to be closing in on the perp, but who knows...maybe one conversation with Anthony Wake will point us in the right direction.

Twenty minutes later, Shaw and Danahay turn up, followed closely by Lily Murphy. Like me, they park a few doors down from Wake’s home. Lily pulls into place on the opposite side of the road, so there aren’t three cars parked in a row. Once she’s out of her own car, Lily slides into the back seat of the detectives’ and is talking to them for several minutes before heading over to us and sitting in our back seat.

‘Any news?’ I ask, turning around.

‘No. Nothing more on Wake. But Shaw said he doesn’t mind if you come in for the interview.’ Her eyes drop for a moment. ‘Given the circumstances.’ She looks at Darren. ‘Darren?’

He nods and offers his hand. ‘Nice to meet you Ms Murphy.’ Darren often goes for the more formal address when he first meets someone. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing or just part of his personality.

‘Call me Lily.’

He nods.

‘So, you think maybe we should head to Ivanhoe?’ I ask.

Lily shakes her head. ‘It’s nearly five...we could miss him on the way there.’

‘Do most people finish up at five here?’ Darren asks.

‘Depends on the job. On the company.’ Lily takes her phone and a small notebook out of her bag. ‘I’ll give his office a call. See if he’s in.’ Once she’s flipped through to the correct page of her notebook, she punches in the phone number. ‘Hi, is Anthony Wake still in?’ A pause. ‘Okay. Thanks.’ Lily hangs up and looks at us. ‘Just missed him.’

I nod. ‘Assuming he’s coming straight home he should be here in fifteen to twenty, thirty tops if he meets really bad traffic.’ I look at Darren. ‘Ivanhoe’s only about ten kilometres...sorry...six miles from here, so even with peak-hour traffic it shouldn’t be too long.’

I take another deep, steadying breath, hoping that Anthony Wake can give us something on the man that took him and, presumably, John. That’s our other stumbling block of course, that the abductions in New Zealand aren’t related to the ones here, despite the similarities. John and Anthony may have been taken by different beasts and suffered different fates.

I feel Lily’s eyes on me.

‘Tell me you’re not carrying, Soph.’

I look guiltily at Darren, then Lily. ‘We’re going to a firing range after this,’ I lie.

‘Jeez, Soph. You’ve got too much at stake in this case to be armed.’

‘This could be our guy. Not the one who took John, obviously, but maybe Curtis Baker’s in there right now.’

Lily glances doubtfully at the house. ‘If the kid screamed the neighbours would hear.’

‘Wake could have a room or basement that’s soundproof.’

Lily shrugs. ‘Maybe.’ She looks at Darren. ‘Keep an eye on her, okay?’

Darren smiles. ‘Always.’

Lily shakes her head. ‘A firing range…’

I shrug. ‘Gotta keep my eye in.’

She drops it and studies the house. ‘We’ve got at least ten minutes. I’ll get Shaw and Danahay to have a look around. Maybe if they hear something…’

I nod and explain it to Darren. ‘Victorian Law states that if the police think a child or woman is in immediate danger, no warrant is required to enter a private residence.’ When it comes to law enforcement, common sense has to rule.

Lily nods. ‘But we should be quick. This guy’s been through hell and the last thing he needs is cops harassing him for no reason, if his only role is that of a victim.’

‘True.’ For an instant I picture Anthony Wake as John—imagine if my brother had survived, only to be suspected of being a paedophile and murderer himself thirty years later... I shiver. A wrongful accusation can damage someone’s life forever. Especially this sort of crime, most acquaintances will never feel one hundred percent certain of the accused’s innocence…somewhere there’s always a small seed of doubt. Lily’s right; we need to tread extremely carefully. It won’t take much for neighbours to start talking, wondering, and the media never seems too far behind a big story, either. Hopefully Victoria Police’s Homicide team is as tight as a steel trap at the moment.

‘You guys wait here.’ Lily opens the door.

‘Hey,’ I call out. ‘We can cover more ground if Darren and I take a look too.’

Lily hesitates, half out of the car. ‘Lose the gun and you’ve got a deal.’

I wince but agree to her terms. With my handbag, and gun, stashed underneath the driver’s seat, Darren and I move towards the house. We’re not far behind Shaw, Danahay and Lily.

‘Hey, Anderson.’ Shaw gives me a nod.

‘Hi. Thanks for…’

‘Keeping my mouth shut?’

I smile. ‘Yeah.’

‘This is Detective Virginia Danahay.’ Shaw turns to his partner. ‘And this is the ex-cop I was telling you about.’

I put my hand forward. ‘Sophie Anderson.’

Danahay gives me a firm pump, the handshake of a woman living in a man’s world. She’s in her late thirties, a little taller than me at about five-ten, with dark blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. I also notice a few caramel-coloured hairs strewn across her jacket—Detective Danahay has a dog or a cat, a cat by the look of the hairs. The wedding band on her finger tells me she’s married, and the slight remnants of a yellow haze on her shoulder indicates a child…with the sniffles.

‘Nice to meet you.’ She smiles.

I introduce Darren as we stride up the drive.

The street is quiet, so presumably the neighbours are still at work or commuting. The quietness makes things easier for us, and soon Shaw and Danahay are leading the way, guns drawn, with Lily, Darren and me in tow.

Shaw and Lily go up the steps to the front door and the deck. Darren and I move towards the windows we can see underneath the deck and Danahay moves towards the left side of the house. I still find myself oscillating between feeling that we’re encroaching on a victim’s privacy and thinking maybe we’re about to find Curtis Baker and spare him further pain. Without a gun I feel weak and helpless. Even though I’m trained in hand-to-hand combat and hold a black belt in Kung Fu, the reality is that after so many years of leading with a gun it’s strange to have both hands hanging loose by my sides. Darren’s arms also appear heavy to me—flapping too freely next to him.

Darren gets to the windows first, keeping low on the off chance that someone is inside and could see him. It reminds me that the possibility of multiple perpetrators is still a factor in this case, and one we can’t discount—just because Anthony Wake is on his way home from work doesn’t mean the coast is clear. I pull in next to Darren, sitting on my haunches. Darren signals that he’s going to have a look, before partially straightening his legs so his head peers over the window sill.

He bobs back down. ‘Looks like a games room.’

‘For kids?’ I ask, also straightening up and peering inside the room. In the centre is a pool table and to the left is a Foosball table. If he lives alone, who does he play with? Does he use this room to entertain young boys or is it just for Wake and his mates? Either is possible.

After five minutes of peering through windows and listening intently for noises, we all head back to our respective cars. Five people sitting on his doorstep might be a little too overwhelming for Wake when he does arrive.

We haven’t been in our cars long when a dark blue Nissan Pajero cruises into the street and pulls into the driveway of number fifteen. Wake is wearing suit pants and a white shirt and carries a soft, tan briefcase. He’s too far away to ascertain much about him other than the basics: nearly six-foot, slender and dark brown hair. His step has got an agility to it that makes me think he’s fit, and he wears dark glasses that he swings onto his head as he’s bounding up the stairs.

Shaw and Danahay make a move, and we stay put for the time being.

‘Anthony Wake?’ I can barely hear Shaw’s voice from this distance.

Wake turns around, half way up the steps to his front door, and takes a few steps back down.

Shaw says something, probably identifying himself because a few seconds later he pulls his ID out of his inside pocket.

After a brief exchange Shaw turns around and gives us a nod—enter the cavalry. Darren, Lily and I make our way to Anthony Wake’s front yard and once we’re on the steps Shaw introduces us.

‘Five people to ask about what happened to me in New Zealand?’ Wake seems surprised but also a little uncomfortable. If he does remember, that’s fair enough. If that’s the case, Lily will be the best qualified to take his statement.

‘There’s a boy missing at the moment and we think it may be related,’ Shaw explains.

Wake furrows his brow. ‘Curtis…Curtis something.’

‘That’s right, Mr Wake, Curtis Baker.’ Shaw leans on the railing casually. ‘But like I said, we won’t take up much of your time.’

Wake nods. ‘I saw the parents on TV last night.’ He shakes his head. ‘Horrible stuff.’

Whether Wake remembers what happened to him or not, those sorts of headlines are bound to strike a chord.

‘Guess you better come in.’ He moves back up the stairs.

Inside, Shaw introduces us all and is upfront about my involvement, explaining that I’m a profiler who used to work for the Victoria Police but that I’m also the sister of one of the victims from the seventies.

‘So you really think it’s the same person? After all these years?’ Wake asks once we’re all seated with cold drinks. Wake has a beer and the rest of us accepted the water option.

‘There are similarities between the cases that indicate the same person or someone with an intimate knowledge of the older cases,’ Shaw explains.

Wake gives a nod. ‘I still don’t remember, you know.’ He takes a swig of beer. ‘Can’t remember how I got on that road, what my real name is…none of it.’

I sink deeper into the chair, even though I want to stand up and yell at Wake that a boy’s life is in danger. That he needs to remember.

‘Have you ever tried hypnosis?’ Lily queries.

‘Yup. After I’d been with my foster parents for about a year they suggested it. Said my parents must be worried sick about me and wanted to do everything they could to find them.’

Lily takes a sip of water before placing her glass on the table. ‘The person I spoke to in New Zealand said there was a national campaign to find any relatives.’

He nods. ‘They never interviewed me personally, but I know my story and some photos of me were on the news and some of the current affairs shows. My foster parents went on a couple of times, too, asking anyone with information to come forward.’ He drinks some more beer. ‘But it’s like I dropped onto that road from nowhere. I think some of the cops thought maybe my parents died the day I was found. You know, that there’d been some horrible accident and I’d survived. But if that’s what happened, they never found their bodies. And then there were the three missing boys from the area. But if I’d been abducted from my home in the middle of the night, my parents would have come forward, right?’

Lily sighs. ‘It is a mystery.’

Wake takes another sip of beer.

‘Do you ever have any unusual dreams?’ I ask. ‘Or feel like something you’ve never seen before is unusually familiar?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nothing. I know everyone thinks something really horrible must have happened to me, but I don’t remember it. I feel…normal. I went through a stage in my early twenties when I wondered what had really happened. Who I really was. But after a year of looking through birth records and more hypnosis…’ He shakes his head. ‘Nothing. So I moved on.’

‘Sometimes an emotional trauma can manifest itself in other ways,’ Lily says. ‘Did you have any run-ins with the law?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Do you mind me asking if you have a girlfriend?’ Lily crosses her legs.

‘Single at the moment, but I’ve had a couple of serious, long-term relationships, and of course lots of not-so-serious girlfriends.’

‘No kids?’ I ask.

He shrugs. ‘What can I say…I haven’t found the right woman.’

‘But the relationships were healthy?’

I know Lily’s wondering if they were sexually healthy. Lots of victims of sexual abuse have a variety of intimacy difficulties in later life—from difficulty connecting with their partners to being the perpetrator of domestic violence. Male victims of sexual abuse are also prone to anger, depression, alcoholism and feelings of alienation.

‘Yes, very healthy. I was with one girlfriend for six years and another for four. It just didn’t feel right to settle down with them. You know, do the whole marriage and kids thing. But hopefully one day.’

Wake’s roughly forty-one—no one knows his exact age, because we don’t know his date of birth. The New Zealand officials put him between ten and thirteen when they found him. So even by today’s standards he’s leaving it relatively late to be starting a family, especially given he’s single, so it’s not like he has a partner that could become pregnant next month.

He leans forward and looks at me. ‘I’m sorry…sorry about your brother.’

I force a smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘It must be so hard…living with it all these years and not knowing.’

‘Yes it is.’ I force evenness into my voice. ‘And I guess maybe you feel the same, Mr Wake.’

He sighs. ‘Sometimes. Like I said, most of the time I feel totally normal. But every now and again I do wonder.’

I nod. ‘Naturally.’

He continues, ‘What went so wrong that I had to erase the first ten to thirteen years of my life away?’

After a few beats of silence Lily says. ‘Would you consider hypnosis again, Mr Wake?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t see the point. It didn’t work before, why would it work now?’

Lily gives me a meaningful glance and I pick up the hint. I’m the best placed to appeal to Wake’s emotions.

‘It could help find whoever did this to my brother. Bring my family some sense of closure.’

‘If this man really did abduct me too. And that’s a big if.’

‘Yes,’ I concede.

He sits quietly for a bit. ‘But surely I’d know. Like you said,’ he looks at me, ‘I’d have dreams or maybe even nightmares.’ He turns his gaze to Lily. ‘Or it’d come out in my relationships.’

‘The mind’s amazing, Mr Wake.’ Lily leans forward. ‘It’s capable of the most extraordinary things, so while there’s a little boy’s life at stake, it’s important we try everything.’

‘Yes, of course. Curtis Baker…you’re right. If you want to try hypnotising me again, I’ll do it.’ He drains the rest of the beer. ‘When?’

‘The sooner the better,’ Lily says. ‘Tonight if you’re free. Like I said, there’s a little boy’s life in the balance.’

‘Sure. Can you give me a couple of hours? Just time to get changed, have some dinner and unwind a bit?’

‘That’s fine. I’ve got someone in mind who specialises in this sort of memory recovery during hypnosis. I’ll call you in half an hour to confirm the appointment time and give you a location. It’ll probably be at his practice in Carlton.’

‘Okay.’

Lily stands up and everybody else but me follows suit. I want to spend more time with Wake—he could hold the key to John’s murder and Curtis Baker’s whereabouts. I know that if the perp follows his usual pattern Curtis’s life’s not in immediate danger, but he’s still in the hands of a sadistic paedophile.

‘Thanks for your time, Mr Wake.’ Shaw gives a little nod.

Lily fishes a card out of her wallet. ‘Here’s my card, but I’ll call you in half an hour. Is the land line here the best number for you?’

‘Yup, that’ll be fine.’ He gives us the number, though I’m sure Lily’s already got it.

Darren reaches his hand down to me, but I give him a pleading look. He shrugs and I guess he’s right—there’s no reason to stay here. Wake doesn’t remember anything, and he’s offered to help in the only way he can—hypnosis. I force myself to stand.

‘Do you have any photos of yourself soon after you were found?’ I ask, in a last-ditch effort to stall, although there’s also a much more functional reason for my request. Does Wake fit our victim pattern visually? It’s probably pointless asking him if he was involved in sports, because he can’t remember anything from his first life, but we can compare a photo to the other boys.

‘Yes, I do. Hold on a second.’

A few minutes later he returns. The photo shows a young boy with dark blonde hair. He’s smiling, but it looks a little forced. Or maybe I’m reading too much into the photo, knowing what probably happened to Wake. Suddenly I feel a little giddy. I give in to the sensation, despite the fact that I’m surrounded by people. I’m desperate to get anything on this case.

Anthony Wake cowers in the corner of a room, a large man stands over him with a belt in his hand.

The vision ends quickly, but the room was set up just like the ones from my other visions—two buckets, a bed and not much else. I could only see the back of the man—he stood between me and the young Wake.

‘Are you okay?’ Wake asks.

‘Yes, sorry. It’s just…you look a little like my brother.’

‘Really?’

I nod, and hand him back the photo.

‘I’m sorry again…for your loss.’ He gives me a sympathetic smile.

Once Wake has closed the door and we’re on the nature strip Lily says, ‘You were quiet, Shaw.’

He shrugs. ‘The guy doesn’t remember anything. Figured that put the ball in your court not mine.’

Shaw’s right. Wake’s lack of memory meant the discussion was more about psychology than police procedures.

Shaw unlocks his car and looks at me. ‘Guess I’ll be seeing you around, Sophie.’

I smile. ‘Probably. And thanks for letting me sit in.’

Shaw gives me a nod before turning to Lily. ‘Keep me in the loop with the hypnosis session. I’m going to go grab some food, but I’d like to sit in, if possible.’

She nods. ‘Okay.’

Within less than fifteen seconds Shaw and Danahay are across the road and in their car, while Darren, Lily and I are still standing out the front of Wake’s house.

Lily turns to me. ‘You know I can’t get you anywhere near the session, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

A hypnosis session is best conducted with only a few people in the room. Plus, I have no official status on this case and Lily has to think about Wake’s privacy. It’ll be a closed-door affair, videoed for later evidence, but still very private.

I bite my lip. ‘You’ll tell me if he remembers anything important?’

‘I’ll give you as many details as I can.’

I nod. ‘Thanks again, Lily. You don’t know how much this means to me. How much you’re helping me.’

She smiles. ‘No, but I can have a good guess.’ She turns to Darren. ‘Nice meeting you.’

‘You too, Lily.’ They shake hands and Lily gets into her car, leaving us to cross the road.

‘So, what did you see?’ Darren asks.

‘How did you know?’

‘Your eyes kinda went blank for a second. I’ve seen you do it before.’

‘Oh.’

We get in the car as Lily drives past.

‘Wake was about to get a beating.’ I start the car. ‘He was in a small room and it was set up like the others.’ I rake my top teeth across my bottom lip. ‘He was in his underwear.’

Darren winces. ‘So they are linked.’

‘If my visions are anything to go by, they must be. Which means our guy  moved from Australia to New Zealand and then…I don’t know because we’ve still got the gap between Anthony Wake in 1982 and the first missing person that matches back here in 2008.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know if we’re any closer, even with Wake.’

‘We’ll have to wait and see how the hypnosis goes. Hopefully the shrink Lily has in mind can find something in Wake’s mind.’

I nod. ‘I hope so.’ Glancing up at the house, I notice him at the window. ‘He’s there.’

Darren follows my gaze. ‘The poor guy probably doesn’t want to remember. I wouldn’t.’

I ease out of the street. ‘Me neither.’

There’s a knock at the door, and then the key turns. The boy enters, with a plate of food in hand.

Curtis Baker sits up. ‘Why are you doing this?’

The boy keeps his eyes on the ground as he moves a little closer before sliding the plate of food across the room—and just within reach of the chained Curtis Baker.

‘Why are you doing this? We could help each other. We could escape.’

Silence.

‘Please! Oh God, please help me.’ Tears stream down his face.

The boy turns and heads back towards the door, seemingly unaffected.

‘Don’t you want to see your parents again?’ Baker yells out in a last-ditch effort to escape.

The boy hesitates for a second. ‘No,’ he says quietly before leaving the room.

‘Help me!’ Baker screams as loud as he can, running towards the door, only to be yanked back by the chains. He crumples to the ground, sobbing.

Chapter 12

I’m back on Main Street and turning left at the Fitzsimons Lane roundabout when it occurs to me.

‘Darren, did you notice how dirty Wake’s car was?’

Darren’s silent for a bit. ‘It was kinda dusty.’

‘Just like the Victorian countryside…Shepparton, Seymour, Euroa.’

‘Eltham seems to have a bit of dust too. Besides, you said you saw him as a victim.’

‘Yeah, when he was younger. That doesn’t mean he’s not involved as the perp now.’

Darren rubs his jaw. ‘I don’t know, Soph. That still leaves us with a killer who fell off the face of the earth in 1982.’

‘What if the perp died and Wake escaped? Maybe Wake even killed him.’

Darren blows out some air. ‘There are lots of what ifs in this…could a young boy be powerful enough to overpower a grown man?’

‘Okay…so the perp dies of natural causes or has a car accident. Whatever. Wake’s left alone and, after a few days, manages to escape.’ I chew down on my lip, both nervous and excited by the potential new lead.

‘So how did Wake, a victim in the eighties, dump Ted Strawasky’s body at the same location as your brother from the seventies?’

I’m silent. Darren’s right, but I’ve still got a nagging doubt. ‘I don’t know, Darren. But my gut says something’s up with Wake.’

Darren stares out the window. ‘Okay. Guess I’m the one always telling you to follow your instincts.’

‘Uh huh.’ I move into the right-hand lane, looking for the nearest point to U-turn on the dual carriageway of Fitzsimons Lane. ‘I’m going back.’ Soon enough I see an opening and swing the car around.

‘You gonna call Lily?’ Darren asks.

‘Guess I better.’ I hit redial on my mobile and update Lily.

‘I guess it’s possible. Although how would a New Zealand victim know where your brother was dumped? Unless the killer kept a diary or something.’

‘Possible, but probably a stretch.’ Suddenly it occurs to me. ‘Maybe he’s not a New Zealand victim.’ I move into the roundabout and back onto Main Road, heading for Eltham. ‘What if he’s Australian and moved to New Zealand with the perp?’

‘As a victim or his son?’ Lily’s entertaining the possibility.

‘Either. He could have been there, as a kid, when the perp dumped John. Could have witnessed everything and now he’s replicating it.’

‘I’ll get Shaw and Danahay to double-back. Sit tight at Wake’s house, preferably out of sight. Okay?’

‘Got it.’

‘I mean it, Soph. You have no official capacity on this case, and no reason to question Wake on your own.’

‘Okay, okay. I’ll wait for Shaw and Danahay.’

‘Good. I’ll be there soon too. Bye.’ She hangs up.

‘Lily knows you well.’ Darren’s got an amused smile on his face but it soon disappears. ‘Don’t forget, Soph, this is all circumstantial. We could be about to put a man who’s already been through hell, through the ringer again. You sure you want to go there?’

‘We have to go there, Darren. Another boy is missing and we need to at least pursue this investigative thread.’

Darren nods. ‘You’re right. Maybe it is time to push Wake a little.’

We arrive back at Wake’s house only fifteen minutes after we’d left, but the driveway’s empty. Has he fled the scene or gone to get takeaway for dinner? I call Lily straight away, and I’m still on the phone to her when Shaw and Danahay arrive.

‘Shaw’s here.’

‘Okay. I’m less than two minutes away.’

I hang up and get out of the car, meeting Shaw in the middle of the quiet street. ‘He’s gone. Who knows where?’

Shaw nods. ‘Let’s wait for Lily. She can call him under the guise of setting up that hypnosis session.’

While it is logical for Lily to make that call, I also think Shaw has enough respect for what Lily does and her role in an investigation to wait for her before making contact with the perp. If Wake is our killer for the recent spate of murders, parts of our profile will still hold, and it will help Lily during any interactions with Wake. And if not...we can see what we get out of him with another round of questioning and then hypnosis.

Good to her word, it’s just under two minutes when Lily’s car turns into the street. She jumps out of the car. ‘No sign of him?’

We all shake our heads.

She blows out breath. ‘Damn. I’ll call him on his mobile, see what he’s got to say for himself.’ She punches the number into her phone. ‘Hi, it’s Lily Murphy here from Victoria Police...How’s 8pm tonight in Carlton for the hypnosis?’ Lily’s cool, casual.

‘Okay. I’ll text you the address. Also, Mr Wake, I just tried your home phone with no luck,’ she lies. ‘Uh huh. Okay, we’ll see you at eight.’ She hangs up and shakes her head. ‘Said he didn’t make it to the phone in time before the machine picked up the call. He’s lying and he’s running.’

‘Which means he’s guilty or at least has some involvement with Curtis Baker.’ Shaw takes a breath. ‘Let’s get a tech onto it. Most phones these days are GPS-enabled, let’s see if we can’t track Wake from his phone. And if not the phone, maybe his car.’

Shaw makes the call and reads out Wake’s mobile phone number and license plate.

I rock back and forth, ready to move. ‘He’s probably running to Curtis Baker. He must realise he can’t keep him for months now, so he’s going to end it.’

‘Shit.’ Lily stares at Wake’s house. ‘It’s gotta be the country somewhere.’

I nod. ‘If he’s the son of our first perp or a victim he kept alive and groomed in some way, Wake’s probably re-living that early trauma and playing out the abductions, assaults and murders. All at the same location, if possible.’

‘Or nearby. But it sends us back to Shepparton and Bendigo. And now we’ve got Euroa and Seymour in the geographical mix too.’

Danahay puts her hands on her hips. ‘Euroa and Seymour are closer to Eltham than Shepparton and Bendigo, so maybe it’s just about logistics.’

I bite my lip. ‘He’s got to select the victims first and then stalk them…and so it would be handier if they’re closer to Eltham, so it’s less of a commute during the lead-up to the abduction. But where he takes them once he’s snatched them…’

Lily cuts in ‘That’s all about the old pattern. Bendigo and Shepparton.’

‘Did you end up moving on the geographical profile?’

‘I’ve got someone working on it. We know his comfort zone is somewhere within Seymour in the south, Euroa in the east, Shepparton in the north and Bendigo to the west. That’s taking into account the new locations, too. You’re talking about two hundred and sixty square kilometres of land.’

‘That’s a big ask,’ I concede. It certainly helps us, but it’s still like looking for a needle in a haystack.

‘Yup. And if we base it just on Bendigo and Shepp, it doesn’t really give us enough points for a geographical profile, other than assuming his place is somewhere between them.’ Lily leans into her hip. ‘Hopefully we can track him via the GPS on his phone or car.’

Lily’s right...with such a large area and not much else to go on, all we can do is try the GPS route and put an alert out on his car. Maybe someone will see it.

Something occurs to me, a memory of roads I haven’t had to drive since I lived here. ‘Hey, Lily, if he’s going to Shepp he has to go up the Hume, right?’

She shrugs. ‘Not many other options unless he’s taking the scenic route.’

‘He doesn’t have time for that. He needs to get north, fast. Or if he’s heading for Bendigo, it’d be the Calder Freeway. He wants to get to Curtis Baker before we do. He needs to spend at least some time with him.’ Wake must know it’s only a matter of time, given the police have found him. One way or another we’d get suspicious of Wake and the idea of hypnosis probably set off alarm bells—he must know or fear his inner demon would show itself when he went under. So now he has to finish his pattern with the latest victim, Curtis Baker. Logic’s gone…now his only focus will be on spending time with Baker. We’ve effectively reduced Baker’s life expectancy—significantly. We have to get to Curtis before Wake does.

‘He’s only about ten, maybe fifteen minutes ahead of us. Let’s move, get some air support on the Hume...’

But I don’t have to finish the sentence. Lily’s already nodding and making her way to her car, as are Shaw and Danahay.

‘You guys can come with me,’ Lily says. ‘We’ll take the Hume and Shaw and Danahay can take the Calder.’ I get the feeling Lily wants to keep me close...keep an eye on me. But she’s forgetting one important point—Wake didn’t kill John. Any feelings I might have of vengeance are on behalf of the recent victims, not John, which makes it much less personal.

The car’s barely started when Lily’s phone rings. She answers it on speaker. ‘Hi, Shaw.’

‘I’ll move on road blocks. In case we can’t find him.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Curtis Baker. If we intercept Wake on the way, he may not tell us where Baker is...where the others were killed.’

‘Anderson’s right, Shaw. Air support and cars have to be low-key. Unmarked cars and only one chopper on each highway. And make sure the pilot doesn’t fly low or buzz Wake’s car. As far as he’s concerned, we won’t be missing him until after 8pm, when he doesn’t show for his appointment.’

Shaw continues quickly. ‘Okay. If we don’t get a GPS lock, I’ll get someone looking at footage from the street cameras. Maybe we can trace his movements based on the most likely routes from here to the Hume and the Calder.’

‘Great. Call me when you got something.’

‘Will do.’

Melbourne was a planned metropolis, with the city centre on a grid layout and the urban sprawl spreading in a mostly orderly fashion. There are lots of benefits to that planning, but today one of those benefits will make our lives harder. With so many different ways to get from here to the Hume and the Calder, it’s a guessing game for us to catch him without any tech help.

Lily comes to the T-intersection and Main Street. Our first navigation decision. ‘I’m thinking Greensborough and then the Ring Road...’ she says.

‘Yeah.’ It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Melbourne and out this way. The Ring Road is one of the newer roads and there are probably multiple routes to it as well as Hume. ‘Maybe we can get support on another route to the Hume.’

‘Good idea.’ Lily turns right into Main Street and calls dispatch, asking for any cars in the Eltham, Greensborough and Montmorency areas to be on the lookout for Wake’s blue Pajero. She also stresses that only unmarked cars should make any attempt to follow him.

The Ring Road is only one of many routes to the Hume Highway, but it makes the most sense—when you’re in a hurry, going one hundred kilometres per hour seems faster than the stop and start of a sixty zone and traffic lights.

Lily changes lanes as we take a left into Bridge Street, avoiding the main township of Eltham. ‘Keep your eyes peeled.’

We’ve just veered onto Karingal Drive when Lily’s phone rings. ‘Murphy…bugger. Okay, let’s keep it moving.’ She hangs up. ‘No GPS on Wake’s car and while his phone does have GPS, it’s switched off.’

‘So he’s onto us?’ Darren says.

She shrugs. ‘Onto us, or paranoid. Or maybe a bit of both.’ She pushes the accelerator down, putting us about ten kilometres over the limit. If we didn’t have to worry about Wake seeing us, she’d put her sirens on and push the car much, much harder. But for now, we have to take it easy.

We take a left, heading towards Greensborough Highway. All I can think about is Curtis Baker…and Wake’s blue Pajero. While Lily focuses on the road, Darren and I can devote one hundred percent of our attention to finding that car.

‘If he was doing the speed limit we should see him soon,’ I comment, staring west at the sinking sun. We’ve still got another hour and a half of daylight left, and after that spotting his car will be much harder.

‘He’ll stick to the limit.’

If Wake is our guy, Lily’s right—the perp is an organised and intelligent offender who plans his crimes well and executes them proficiently. While we may have rattled Wake, he knows the best way to wind up with a cop on your tail is to speed.

We’ve just merged onto the Ring Road when Darren says: ‘Is that it?’ He points two lanes across to a blue Pajero that looks like it’s sitting about two kilometres above the limit. That’d be right. You need to be 4Ks over to get a ticket.

Lily edges closer. ‘What’s the number?’

‘Tango-Uniform-Victor-4-5-4.’

‘That’s him.’ Lily decreases her speed ever so slightly and moves across one lane, sitting about ten car lengths behind Wake and one lane across. Next she phones Shaw and fills him in.

Shaw’s voice comes excitedly through the Bluetooth speaker attached to Lily’s visor. ‘Great. We’re about five minutes from the Ring Road.’

‘Okay. You may as well use sirens until you hit the Ring.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’

Just before he hangs up we hear two brief wails.

The journey up the Hume is sheer hell and I feel myself see-sawing between agitation at having to sit in a car and unadulterated rage, thinking of Curtis Baker hidden away somewhere in the country. This sicko is racing to be with him, racing to kill him, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. At least with two cars tracking him on the Hume we won’t lose him. We’ve got another two unmarked vehicles en-route, but most of the nearest responders were blue-and-whites, with the Victoria Police emblem emblazoned on them. And we sure as hell don’t want that.

My ringing mobile phone brings me back from one of my rage cycles. It’s Mum. Shit, we’ve been gone a long time.

‘Mum, hi.’

‘Soph.’ She lets it out in a rush of relief.

‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

‘Where are you, darling?  The shops closed an hour ago.’

‘We’re on the Hume.’

‘What?’

‘I think we’ve got a suspect, Mum.’ I still don’t want to get her hopes up, inform her that we think we’re following someone right now to the place where John was held, and killed. Instead, I try to soften the blow. ‘He’s too young for John’s murder and the others, but he’s a suspect for the recent ones, and we think he may know something about John and the earlier boys.’

‘I see.’ Mum’s silent. It’s a lot to take in.

‘So what are you doing on the Hume?’

‘Following the suspect.’ I bite my lip. ‘He’s only a few cars in front of me, Mum.’

‘Bring the little boy in, darling.’ Mum’s voice is ragged with emotion. ‘Bring him back to his family.’

‘We will, Mum.’ I choke on my words. If we can get Curtis Baker back alive and as unharmed as possible...

Just after Seymour, Wake takes the Goulburn Valley Highway exit, heading us towards Shepparton.

‘Shepparton?’ Darren glances at the signed turn-off.

I nod slowly and let out a deep breath. ‘My old stomping ground.’

Darren winces at my poor attempt at casual.

Could John have died only a few kilometres away from home and from us? The thought of him so close and undergoing such hell won’t leave my mind.

‘What you thinking?’ Darren’s voice is a whisper, but Lily would hear even a whisper. Not many places to hide in a car.

‘John.’ I answer him honestly, comfortable for Lily to know this detail. It’s probably assumed...obvious...anyway. To this point, I’ve managed to keep some kind of distance between the case and my emotional involvement. But now, as everything’s coming to a head, I doubt I’ll be able to maintain that level of objectivity. And, God help me, if I’m in a room alone with Wake and my gun...but then I remember my promise to Darren.

Darren reaches his hand out and places it on my shoulder. ‘If Wake’s our guy it’s nearly over. He’ll know what happened to John...exactly what happened.’

Darren’s right. If Wake is our guy, he dumped Ted Strawasky right where John’s body was found nearly thirty years ago. Wake had to have been there, seen the man who took John, held John, killed John.

‘Yes. I feel like we’re close.’

Wake has no “history” from thirty years ago—all that we know is that he must have been in his early teens. If he’s involved now, he was somehow a witness and maybe even an accomplice to the atrocities in country Victoria and New Zealand. Could he have saved John and the others? Or maybe their presence protected him in some way.

‘If he’s the son of our killer, maybe his dad moved onto boys—strangers—when his own son became too old.’

Lily nods. ‘If we are talking father-son, he probably started abusing his own son after some stressor, and, like you said, eventually moved onto other boys. Perhaps boys that were like his son at the preferred age.’

Sexual abuse, like domestic violence, can be cyclical, with the victim becoming the perpetrator. However, most victims of child abuse don’t go on to commit the same acts of depravity on others. In fact, stats show that about ten percent of males who were abused as children become abusers in their adult lives. Past sexual abuse is just one potential trigger factor in a person’s psyche.

‘What if he’s a victim, no blood relation?’ Darren asks.

‘Similar scenario,’ I reply. ‘Although you’d have to wonder why the killer kept Wake around for years when all the other boys met with death?’

Lily glances in her rear-vision mirror. ‘Maybe Wake was his first victim. He developed more of an emotional attachment to him, one that he couldn’t break by killing Wake.’

I nod. ‘So Wake’s abducted, possibly as young as seven or eight, and then moves from victim to accomplice, or even just observer, when he gets older. The perp’s attachment extends to taking him along when he moves from Australia to New Zealand. They probably even had some level of emotional co-dependency. Wake becomes used to his life with the original perp, used to the abductions and the killings...or maybe he’s just able to block them out...not think about what was happening to the other boys.’

I bite into my bottom lip, wondering what Wake was thinking when the perp took John. Did he talk to John? Comfort him? Hopefully Wake will tell me, but it’s possible I’ll never know. Wake’s got nothing to lose now, and he may choose death by cop rather than turning himself in.

‘Do you think he remembers? The amnesia could be a ruse.’ Darren’s staring into the darkness that surrounds us now that it’s 8.45pm. We’re in the Victorian countryside with virtually no illumination save a few cars’ headlights.

‘It’s hard to say,’ Lily responds. ‘It’s possible he always remembered and just didn’t want to tell anyone...wanted to start afresh. And it’s possible he still can’t remember anything from his time with the perp. He might not even realise why he’s almost compelled to do these things to his victims. Might not realise he was part of the same cycle over thirty years ago.’

‘But what about the same body dump site?’ I ask. ‘Surely that can’t be coincidence.’

‘Sub-conscious, Soph.’

I nod, having come to the same realisation as the words left my mouth. The subconscious is a powerful thing and Wake could have literally found himself travelling the same stretch of road, pulling over at the same spot and hiking the short distance in with the body. Consciously he may have been thinking: This looks pretty good. Remote. Quiet. But in reality his subconscious was leading him to that spot, compelling him to repeat the behaviour of his own abuser.

A shiver runs through me and I push away the image of a man carrying John’s lifeless form through the bush searching out John’s “resting spot”. John’s never been at rest, but maybe he will be soon.

We’re still about twenty kilometres from Shepparton when the left indicator of Wake’s blue Pajero starts flashing.

Lily immediately hits redial on her phone—thankfully still in reception.

‘Yup.’ Shaw’s voice booms through the speaker.

‘You got him?’

‘Uh huh.’

Lily slows a little, but then continues straight as Wake takes a left onto a dirt road running parallel to the one we’re on. The further out we came, the fewer the cars on the road to provide us with camouflage. And if we’d followed Wake down that dirt road we could have tipped our hand.

Behind us, it becomes suddenly dark. Shaw’s killed his lights and probably pulled off to follow our guy.  ‘We’ll swing around in a bit.’ Lily maintains a steady speed, but it’s eighty in a one-hundred zone. If Wake glances towards the main road he’d see our lights continuing on the open stretch of highway, moving a bit slow for the road, but she doesn’t want to get too far away. And neither do I.

‘He’s made another turn,’ Shaw says through the open connection. ‘We’re going to follow, still without lights.’

‘Okay. I’ve got a bend coming up, so once I’m around that we’ll head back your way. Take it easy. Wake’s got nothing to lose at this point.’

‘I know, Murphy. I want the boy safe too.’

‘Let’s keep the phone line open.’

‘Roger that.’

Lily swings off to the left, pulling into the dirt just enough that she can U-turn in one movement. After a quick check of her mirrors, she’s back on the road, heading for the mystery road.

Once on the dirt road, she kills the lights and slows down to a crawl, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. It’s slow going, less than five kilometres an hour, and although I want to tell Lily to hurry up, to turn on her lights and floor it, I know her strategy is for the best. We have to think about Curtis Baker—he’s the priority now, not Wake. Not his past victims. And if Wake hears cars, sees headlights coming his way from the middle of nowhere, he might skip the sexual part of his last night with Baker and go straight to the murder component. It’s one of the worst parts of being a cop—every fibre of your being wants to burst in, save the boy from further assault and emotional harm, but at what cost? His life? With someone like Wake, that’s exactly how a confrontation will go. He’ll take Baker out, and then turn the gun on himself or storm us for the death-by-cop option.

‘We’re on the dirt road, Shaw. About half a kilometre in. You?’

‘I can still see Wake’s lights, but it looks like he’s slowing down.’

‘Good.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Come straight for two kilometres, then take a right into another dirt road. We’re about a kilometre down that road and I guess Wake’s roughly one K in front of us.’

‘Okay. Let me know when he stops. If we lose reception, wait for us. Baker’s chances will be increased if we can get Wake away from him. Three of us can distract Wake while the other two go in for the boy.’

‘Will do.’

Darren’s hand is on my shoulder, a comforting presence.

The silence and sense of isolation is broken only by pebbles crunching under our tyres and occasionally bouncing off the car’s under carriage as we inch along the dirt track. After about five minutes of silence a beeping tone comes through Lily’s Bluetooth speaker...we’re out of range and in the complete seclusion of the country, just like all his victims have been. I hope Shaw managed to tell our back-up our location. Lily didn’t. Then again, mobile phones aren’t their only mode of communication.

We keep crawling forward, taking the right and looking out for any sign of Shaw or Wake. It’s not long before we see a small shack with a couple of lights on the top of a hill. Lily slows down a little more, even though our car should be out of earshot.

We start to climb, closing the distance, and it’s not long before a torch gives a single flash on the road in front of us—Shaw.

As we get closer I can see the dark blue Ford pulled into a small clearing on the side of the road. Lily pulls in further up, and by the time we’ve moved out of the car, Shaw and Danahay are standing behind us, both wearing bullet-proof vests.

‘Well?’ I ask Shaw.

‘He’s been in there for about five minutes now. We haven’t been up to have a look yet.’

Lily nods. ‘Let’s go. Have we got backup coming?’

‘They’re about fifteen minutes behind us. And if anything changes up there I’ve got this.’ Shaw gives the SAT phone strapped to his waist a small tap.

‘I don’t think we should wait.’ I edge up the hill ever so slightly. ‘If Wake’s spooked, there’s no telling what he could do to Curtis Baker.’

Shaw looks at the other profiler, the official profiler, for input.

‘She’s right.’ Lily moves to the boot and takes out her waist holster, checking her weapon and extra ammunition. Lily’s job keeps her at a desk most of the time, but she’s made her way up the rank and file, and I’m sure she’s kept her eye in at the shooting range.

‘You think he’ll be armed?’ Darren asks, knowing the chances of a suspect carrying a gun in Australia are much less than the States.

‘Hard to know. Farming land like this, probably got a rifle. There was no evidence of gunshot wounds on any of the victims, but it is possible they were shot in soft tissue and left to bleed out.’

Possible, but unlikely. Firstly the wound would have to be a clean-through shot, otherwise the bullet would have been recovered with the remains. Secondly guns aren’t generally personal enough for a sadistic paedophile—they prefer to kill with their bare hands, usually during the sexual assault or directly after. And thirdly, I saw the original perp strangle John. But Lily is right about the rifle. It’s not something he uses for the boys, but it could be used on us. I take my gun out of my handbag, along with an extra two rounds of bullets.

Shaw and Lily eye the gun but don’t say anything. They know they need the extra weapon on their side, especially given we’ll be splitting up and Darren’s not carrying.

‘You guys got a spare vest?’ Lily asks Shaw as she passes her spare to me. ‘This will be too small for you, Darren.’

‘Yup. I’ll be back in a sec.’ Danahay moves down the slight gradient to the Ford.

Lily eyes my gun again. ‘Try not to fire it, huh?’

‘Last resort only,’ I say, even though I’d like nothing more than to put a bullet in Wake.

She gives me a quick nod, but her eyes rest meaningfully on mine.

‘I presume Faulkner doesn’t know I’m here?’

Shaw clicks his fingers. ‘Damn, I knew I forgot to mention something.’ He gives me a grin. ‘For old time’s sake, Soph. But don’t fuck it up. Don’t make me regret it.’ Like Lily, his eyes go from me to my weapon.

‘Come on, guys. You think I’m gun crazy just because I’ve been living in the States for a couple of years?’

It has the desired effect—smiles with soft chuckles from Lily and Shaw and a mock offended look from Darren.

Once Danahay is back and Darren’s suited up, I ask Shaw what the plan is. As the most senior member here, Shaw’s in charge and he’s got more field experience than Lily. Darren might have more on the clock than Shaw, but he’s only an observer.

‘Lily, you come with Danahay and me to the front. We’ll focus on Wake, the man who might have the gun. Sophie, you and Detective Carter try to find Curtis Baker, see if you can’t get him out of the house.’

We make our way up the dirt road, moving in close formation and keeping to one side and the tree line. I doubt Wake’s looking out the front window to see if he was followed, but you never know. The pace is a slow jog, but even that’s a little awkward in the pitch black of country Victoria. There are lots of areas like this in Australia—where your nearest neighbour is fifty kilometres or more away. It brings to mind the Aussie horror-thriller flick, Wolf Creek. Total isolation. I’m glad I’m here with three other law-enforcement people that’s for sure.

The incline gets steeper, and as we get closer to the small farmhouse we instinctively slow down and crouch a little lower, melding our bodies into the shadows of the trees. Thankfully we’re all wearing dark clothes, with aqua blue being the lightest colour in the mix. With just over one hundred metres to go, the tree line stops short, providing a perimeter around the house. Lots of country homesteads followed this format, planting pines or other similar border-type trees up the driveway but stopping well short of the actual house, which was built in the middle of cleared land.

I take a deep breath, focusing on the two front windows of the house. Light streams from them to the surrounding dirt, and Wake’s Pajero is in muted light at the top of the driveway.

Shaw, leaning on a tree for cover, turns around and gives us a nod. He holds up five fingers, indicating we had five minutes before they’ll approach the house from the front.

Darren and I set off to the left, keeping to the line of trees rather than going diagonally across to the side of the house. We stagger our dashes from tree-to-tree, keeping low and taking it one metre, one tree, at a time. The others keep their eyes on the house, and when I glance back at them occasionally they give me the “all clear” nod. So far, so good.

We overshoot the side of the house, and once we’re about twenty metres past the mark, we crouch together behind a tree.

‘Ready?’ Darren asks.

I nod, but my breathing is hard and fast—not from exertion, but from pure adrenaline. Is this where John was held?

‘I’ll go first.’ As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I make the dash through the open space. There’s nowhere to hide, no cover, but I still think we’ve been discreet enough that Wake is confident he’s hidden. As far as he’s concerned, by now we’d only be wondering why he didn’t turn up for the hypnosis session. There’s no way he’d think we’re out in front of his hideaway.

I make it to the corner of the house without incident and a few minutes later Darren’s by my side. We move together down the side of the house, heading for the back. At the first window I risk a look inside. With the internal lights on, it would be very hard for Wake to see us, unless his face was pressed against the window. Otherwise, all he’d see is his own reflection. Still, I keep the look to a peek, ducking my head up for only a couple of seconds.

‘Well?’ Darren whispers into my ear.

I shake my head. All I could see was a bedroom, and beyond the bedroom door a hallway. It looks like the house is in the classic design of a long hall with rooms rolling off from either side, and the kitchen and bathroom are probably at the back of the house.

We keep moving along the side of the house until we get to the next window. However, at this window, the lack of light makes me cautious. Without a light on in the room, if Wake happened to be looking outside just as I popped my head up, he’d see me. I play it safe, sinking underneath the window and pausing, listening. After a minute of silence I keep us moving toward the next window, which I’m assuming must be the bathroom or kitchen. But as we move closer to the back of the house, another building suddenly becomes visible. It’s large, almost as big as the house. And while it’s only made of steel and resembles a huge shed, it’s also a totally enclosed structure. A faint light emanates from inside.

A rush of nausea hits me and an onslaught of images comes thick and fast.

Faces of boys…screaming…boys gasping for their last breaths…screaming…

I come to with Darren shaking me. I’m on the ground, leaning against the side of the house. How long have I been here?

‘You okay?’ Darren’s brow is wrinkled and he looks extremely worried.

I manage a nod, followed swiftly by a cold shiver despite the fact I’m drenched in sweat.

‘This is it.’ I look over at the renovated shed, then avert my eyes. ‘That’s where he takes them.’ I can barely get the screams out of my head and I keep on seeing their faces in taunting flashes. It’s not the worse visual I’ve encountered, not the most graphic, but the boys’ fear…I dig my nails into the palm of my hand, concentrating on not throwing up.

Then it hits me…Curtis Baker. Stay on track.

I edge my way up the side of the weatherboard wall until I’m standing and make for the large shed.

Darren grabs my wrist lightly. ‘What are you doing?’ His voice is barely audible.

‘We have to go in. Curtis Baker.’ I match his decibel reading.

‘We’ll get the others first. They don’t know about the shed.’

‘What if he’s in there right now…doing God knows what to that boy…or killing him?’ My voice rises ever so slightly.

Darren’s brow furrows and then gives me a nod before making the dash across the open yard to the shed’s entrance. He stands, his back against the shed, and after a few seconds waves me over.  Darren was looking at the back windows of the house, so obviously Wake isn’t standing in the kitchen with a direct visual of the shed. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s not somewhere in the house rather than inside the shed.

My legs are wobbly, but they do take me across the dry earth to Darren’s side. I hold my gun close to my chest, ready.

He looks at me and we both give each other a little nod. Holding Darren’s gaze I mouth, ‘I’ll go first.’

His brow furrows again for a few seconds before he realises it’s our only option. We can’t discount Wake having a firearm and I’m the one holding a gun.

I manoeuvre myself past Darren, still keeping tight with the building. Hand extended, I test the handle of the metal door. It gives, and I push it down very slowly until the lock releases. My options are to go in slow, hoping he’s not looking at the door, or go in fast, gun leading. I decide on the first option, and gently nudge the door open with my left hand and slight body weight, while using my right hand to hold my gun up at chest height. I also listen intently, ready for any sound that may warn me Wake’s coming our way.

The door’s only open about twenty centimetres, not enough for me to see inside, when I hear a boy’s muffled cry. I turn back to Darren and he gives me a nod, indicating he heard it too. I quickly switch to option number two, swinging the door open with my gun trained roughly at what I’d estimate to be Wake’s chest level, and I step in.

A little boy is sprawled on a torn leather sofa, watching a dilapidated TV.

The inside of the shed comprises of a large living space at the front, while down the back are three rooms with three closed doors. The little boy looks up at me and I put my forefinger in front of my lips. He freezes, glancing back at the middle door.

I move over to him, keeping my gun on the doors, and crouch down next to him. ‘You’re safe now,’ I whisper.

The boy’s sandy blonde hair is matted together, and his face is streaked with dirt—as is the rest of his body. He wears nothing but a pair of shorts. The boy’s not Curtis Baker. I don’t even recognise him from the missing persons reports we ploughed through at Lily’s house. A victim who somehow disappeared under the radar?

I stand up and move slowly toward the back rooms with Darren close behind.

Another little whimper startles me, and I can tell it’s coming from behind one of the doors, but it’s hard to say which one. I take a quick glance back at the boy, who’s now watching us rather than the TV. I’m sure he looked at the middle door when I first arrived, but confirmation of that would be handy. However his face is blank.

Moving forward, I signal to Darren that I’m going to try the middle first. He nods, but I’m still at least ten metres away when the little boy on the couch yells.

‘Anthony, police!’

Anger flickers through me, but is quickly gone and I make a run for the back wall, heading for the left side. I remind myself it’s not the boy’s fault. He’s obviously been with Wake for a long time and has been groomed, just like we assume Wake was by his “predecessor”. A derivation of the classic Stockholm Syndrome, where a hostage bonds with their captor.

My plan is to get my back up against that wall and then wait for Wake to come hurtling out of one of the rooms. But we don’t make it before the centre door flings open. Tears are streaming down Wake’s face, and he’s unarmed. Or appears to be.

‘Stop right there! Hands up in the air where I can see them.’

He complies with my request, tears still falling.

‘What have you done, Wake?’ I rush past him and push him over to Darren, double checking there’s not a gun or anything else in the small of his back.

The room is just like the one from my vision…a bed, two buckets, nothing else. And lying on the bed is the lifeless form of Curtis Baker.

‘No!’ I rush to the bed and drop to my knees, checking for a pulse. Baker’s neck is red, and I can still see the imprint of Wake’s fingers around it. Death by strangulation usually occurs when the pressure around the neck blocks the blood flow to the brain, by compressing the carotid artery. It’s compromising the blood to the brain rather than cutting off the airway that’s deadly. First the victim will become unconscious and then, if the pressure is still applied, death will quickly follow. But I’m hoping we interrupted Wake in time—before death and hopefully before irreparable brain damage. We were fast…he didn’t have much time with Curtis. But just as I’m cursing myself for not getting here a minute sooner, I feel the faint pop of a pulse. Quiet, slow, but it’s there. Barely able to contain my excitement, I check to see if he’s breathing.

With the pressure around his neck no longer present, he should regain consciousness quite quickly; but I still need to confirm he’s breathing. Placing my hand close to his mouth, I feel a faint heat against it and the breath is confirmed by a gentle rise and fall in his chest. It’s a little slow and uneven, but it’s something. Rescue breathing, rather than full CPR, may help to even it out and will ensure as much oxygen as possible is getting into his lungs. Gently tilting his head back, I block his nose with my thumb and forefinger and give him small breaths.

‘Baker’s back here,’ Darren says. Obviously Shaw, Danahay and Lily have finished their sweep of the house and found their way to the back shed.

I’m not surprised to see only Shaw and Danahay come through the door—Lily would have stayed with the boy on the couch.

‘Shit!’ Shaw crosses to the bed.

I look up. ‘He’s alive, just unconscious. But I don’t know how long he’s been out for.’

Shaw kneels down on the other side of the bed. ‘Strangled… even if he wakes up, he could have brain damage.’

I bite my lip. ‘I know.’ I continue with mouth-to-mouth, even though I don’t know if it will help or not.

‘I’ll get on the SAT phone. We need paramedics A-S-A-P.’

‘Uh huh.’ I sit back on my haunches and watch Curtis’s breaths. ‘I think his rhythm and force are getting better.’

While Shaw calls the emergency operator, Curtis inhales several more times and lets out a sharp cough before his eyes flutter open. I lean into him, making sure he sees my face, a female face, immediately.

‘You’re safe now.’ Compared to the other boy I said this to, it seems to have a much stronger effect on Baker.

‘Police?’ Curtis’s voice is husky and he’s still coughing, but the clarity of his question shows me he’s with it. To double check, I ask him his name, age, where he lives, and he’s able to answer all the questions easily and coherently.

I look up to Shaw, who’s listening intently. ‘Can you ring the Baker family?’

Shaw gives Curtis Baker a wide smile. ‘Sure.’

It’s the sort of phone call we all long for, but often don’t get to make: a successful resolution to a case and a victim found alive, not dead.

He punches the number into the SAT phone off by heart. ‘Mr Baker, it’s Detective Brad Shaw from Victoria Police… It’s good news, Mr Baker. I’m with your son now and he’s okay.’

Okay is an overstatement, but he is alive.

Epilogue

Two days later

I snake my way through the well-kept grass, navigating on gut feel and long-ago memories. The sun’s shining, beating down with a heat that seems way hotter than the forecasted twenty-eight—but that’s the Aussie sun. As the warmth radiates into every limb, I’m reminded of my childhood in country Victoria.

I take a left, skim-reading the tombstones as I go. It always saddens me to see the indicators of shorter life spans. Death is never easy, never okay, but there’s something so wrong, so tragic about dying young.

I start looking for John’s grave, feeling that we’re close. I vaguely remember it being near the top left corner of the cemetery. In the distance I recognise a stone marker. Surrounded by marble, it looks modest and somehow comforting—cosier. The stone marker suits John better than marble.

I stop at his grave and take a deep breath before sinking to my haunches. ‘I did it, John. I finally did it.’

I feel the floods of wetness on my cheeks before I even realise I’m crying. Heavy sobs drag my lungs down, as I struggle for breaths. Darren’s hanging back, a good ten metres behind me, and I’m glad he doesn’t come closer. This is my time with John.

Eventually the raw emotion passes and I sit down cross-legged at the foot of John’s grave. I know Mum talks to John, but I’ve never really done that, except for maybe a few times when I was looking over his case file and I’d let something slip like “Who did this to you?” Aside from that, I’ve never felt comfortable talking to him.

But today…today is the time to tell him everything. It took a few hours of questioning Wake to put it all together, but Shaw and Lily Murphy did a great job. During questioning, Wake even confessed that he was planning to kill Curtis, the other boy, and then himself. Lucky for us he didn’t realise we were so close behind.

I take a deep breath. ‘We found the place, John. The place where he took you.’ Another deep breath. ‘Your abductor’s name was Harold Banks. He was a journalist for The Bendigo Advertiser and covered a lot of territory in Shepp, too, including writing articles for the sports and community pages.’

According to Wake, local sporting events for kids were Banks’s hunting ground. And Wake copied this behaviour many years later. Elements of our profile fit both men, but we always knew we could have been dealing with two offenders.

‘Harold Banks’s wife left him and took their son and younger daughter when he was thirty-nine. The son was ten at the time and the wife suspected Banks was sexually abusing him. But rather than going to the police, or even talking to her son about it, she just up and left. I guess that was easier for her—to say that the marriage wasn’t working, rather than admitting her fears to herself and others.’

Her decision was also probably influenced by the era. Back in the seventies, paedophilia was much less common—or maybe just reported less.

‘Banks’s wife told Shaw that she’d never revealed her fears to anyone—until Shaw started asking the hard questions yesterday. She’d walked in on her husband and son, both in only their underwear. It was the final straw, something that confirmed her suspicions. She gathered the two kids up there and then and walked, sending her sister back later for their things. Banks’s last image of his son was his wife dragging him away in only his underwear.’

Lily and I both believe this is the significance of finding the victims in their underwear. Every victim was a substitute son for Banks, and he left them in the last image he had of his son. Rather than representing remorse or restoring the children’s innocence in some way, the underwear was part of Banks’s signature.

Banks’s family also represents his most common victim type—a boy with a younger sister. He didn’t find the boys through the sisters, but most of his victims did have younger sisters—and now we know why.

‘Banks’s first victim was Anthony Wake, whose real name is Jarod Small. Small’s parents were killed in a car accident and Banks turned up at the police station in response to a call for relatives. I guess the welfare system wasn’t what it is today, because they believed him—believed he was the boy’s only living relative. Jarod Small, known to us as Anthony Wake, became the son Banks had lost, and I guess Banks filled a gap for Wake too...until the sexual abuse started.’ I stare at John’s tombstone.

‘Wake didn’t even know it was wrong at first. But after a few years his “father’s” interest began to wane...Wake was reaching puberty. I don’t know how it happened the first time, how Wake felt when he realised Banks had brought another little boy home. Maybe he was relieved that Banks was no longer paying him any sexual attention...maybe he was jealous. Either way, Wake says he tried to protect the boys as much as he could, but in the end he couldn’t fight a grown man.’

I twist the ring on my little finger. ‘And I guess he loved Banks.’ That especially makes me pause.

‘In 1980 Banks hoped a fresh start in New Zealand would tame his demons, so he sold his property and took Wake/Small with him. But it didn’t help. He didn’t stop. Death was the only thing that could stop Banks from abducting young boys and then killing them. From what Wake said, Banks had a heart attack. His death was recorded as natural causes, but no one even knew he had a “son”. As far as his New Zealand workmates and neighbours knew, Banks was a bachelor. And when he keeled over, Wake ran. As for the claims of amnesia, Wake says he experienced a complete memory loss for many years. Part of him knew how wrong his “father’s” actions were, so he shut them all out. It wasn’t until Wake hit his late thirties that he started to remember. Flashes of memory when he looked in the mirror. He said eventually it got so bad that he couldn’t see his own reflection—only that of his abuser. He remembered the house near Shepparton, found it and bought it, using a company name.’

Hence why it didn’t come up in the initial Victoria Police search.

‘And so he started where Banks left off…recruiting a son-like figure and killing the other boys he abducted once he was done with them.’

I let my head fall back and look up at the sky, closing my eyes to protect them from the sun’s brightness. It feels good to tell John...tell him what really happened. Even though in some ways he knows more than we do, I doubt he would have understood the strange relationship between Banks and Wake. Wouldn’t have known that the little boy who tried to help him, tried to protect him, grew up into a monster himself.

A wave of nausea hits me, and I don’t fight the oncoming vision.

John’s in the room and Banks is doing up the buckle on his belt. Banks leaves the room and John’s crying. A teenage boy comes in.

‘Shut up, you stupid bastard.’ The boy hits John across the face.

Anger simmers across John’s features, but he pushes it down.

‘You’ve been here long enough, runt.’ The teenage boy moves forward and his hands close around John’s neck.

I wake up to Darren’s face blocking the sun. I’m lying on the grass at the foot of John’s grave.

‘Shit!’

‘What is it? Are you okay?’

I nod and give Darren my hand and he pulls me to standing. ‘Banks didn’t kill all those boys. Wake did.’

‘What? But he was only a child himself.’

‘A jealous child. One who could only remember perverted fatherly love and felt like the boys were competition. He wasn’t protecting the boys, keeping them safe. He killed them.’

Darren shakes his head. ‘So Banks wasn’t a sadistic paedophile?’

‘I didn’t see enough to know for sure, but I’d say the sadistic streak was in Wake, not Banks. Banks cared for those boys, in his sad, dangerous way, and Wake punished the boys for it.’

‘Can you prove it?’

I laugh, a bitter laugh. ‘No. But I finally know what happened to John all those years ago, and the man, the boy, who killed him is going to prison for life.’

Part of me almost feels sorry for Wake—almost. He was orphaned, and then picked up by a predator who twisted his notions of love. Twisted them so much that Wake killed the boys who were taking his father’s attention away from him. Who knows what Wake’s natural personality would have been like? But in terms of nature versus nurture, his environment sure did screw him up. I’ll let Wake know that I’ve discovered the truth, but I can’t take it any further than that. There’s no way to prove his involvement all those years ago. And no real point. I know, and that’s all that matters.

As we walk away from John’s grave I turn back for one final look. Part of me still feels angry—angry at Wake, at Banks, at myself for not somehow saving John. But at least now justice has been done, or is set on its proper course.

Curtis Baker is back with his family and doctors have given him the all-clear regarding brain damage and other physical injuries; the boy on the sofa has been identified as a runaway who went off the radar three years ago. He’d gone from living on the streets to living with Wake, though the streets were safer. Now he’s with a foster family, who will hopefully be able to help him overcome his past.

Darren takes my hand and gives it a squeeze and I squeeze back, taking what feels like the deepest breath of my life. It’s done. More tears flow down my cheeks, but this time they’re tears of relief. A couple of days ago I thought that if I let myself feel, really feel, the pain of John’s death, it would leave me with a wound from which I could never recover. I’d even questioned whether I’d be able to do my job—if I’d be me.

But now, even though part of me will always feel anger at the world for what happened to John, I also feel solace and justice.

‘We were lucky.’ Darren’s voice is soft.

I guess we were. Lucky we got to Curtis Baker in time, and lucky we finally found the killer.

‘Mum thinks that all the murdered boys, including John, helped us bring their attacker to justice. That it wasn’t luck at all.’

Darren smiles. ‘Maybe she’s right. What do you think?’

‘Me?’ I let out a sigh. ‘I don’t know what I believe.’ I look back at John’s grave. ‘But John’s killer is in jail and another generation of boys is safe. And that makes me feel really, really good.’

Table of Contents

Cover

International acclaim for PD Martin’s books

About the author

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue