The Great Divide Read online

  Charlotte’s face fell. ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘But you said yesterday …’ Jake began.

  ‘She only wants to talk to you.’

  ‘The senior sergeant asked Ms Kelly to accompany Detective Hunter for the interview,’ Murphy said.

  ‘Evelyn,’ Charlotte said, obviously uncomfortable, ‘she really doesn’t want to see you. I like having you as my counsellor, but for whatever reason it doesn’t work for Amelia.’

  ‘Does she usually see a different counsellor in Dunton?’ Jake asked.

  ‘I’ve told you, I’m the only counsellor in Dunton.’

  Jake didn’t appreciate the possessive tone of Evelyn’s voice.

  ‘Do you mean the only counsellor for Victim Services, or the only counsellor full stop?’

  ‘Full stop.’

  He cocked his head to the side. ‘That’s a large population for just one counsellor to service. I wonder why no one else has set up in the area.’

  She twiddled the gold cross on the chain around her neck. ‘They have occasionally, but they never seem to last longer than six months.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve never spoke to any of them.’

  They had reached Amelia’s door.

  ‘Charlotte, I know what I’m doing,’ she said.

  Jake was beginning to doubt that.

  ‘It’s Amelia’s decision to make, though,’ Charlotte said. ‘She’s trying so hard to get better, but she said she can’t handle talking to any kind of psychologist or counsellor right now. She said just having one in the room makes her want to stop existing.’

  ‘I’m certain Senior Sergeant Kelly would want us to respect her wishes,’ Jake said, looking at both Murphy and Evelyn. ‘He wouldn’t want us to be responsible for Amelia attempting suicide again.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Murphy said.

  ‘Of course,’ Evelyn demurred, her eyes furious.

  ‘As a compromise, I’ll record what’s said,’ Jake offered. ‘And perhaps the two of you could look in on Mason Campbell? He may have remembered something useful?’

  The stiffness in Evelyn’s back suggested she had no intention of visiting Mason Campbell at the police’s behest again.

  Charlotte held up the pastry and coffee. ‘I’ll take these in to her then leave you to it?’ she said to Jake. He opened the door for her, leaving his disgruntled colleagues in the corridor.

  *

  ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry for causing all this trouble,’ Amelia said, looking at the floor, her feet swinging on the edge of her bed, hot pink socks and leg warmers peeking from under her pyjamas.

  ‘Amelia, you have nothing to be sorry for,’ Jake said. ‘And if you don’t feel up to answering my questions today, I can come back another time.’

  She took a deep, juddering breath and put the cup and bag Charlotte had handed her on the bedside table. ‘No, let’s do this now. But you have to listen to me … no one ever listens.’

  ‘Listen to what, exactly?’

  ‘You don’t have to understand why, or how, or anything like that. Just hear what I’m saying.’

  Amelia was somehow calm and distraught at the same time; a state that Jake thought of as in extremis. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The way this works is … I can talk to you for a while, but while we’re talking everything will be closing up on the inside.’

  Jake had no idea what she meant. ‘Okay.’

  ‘The thing that happens when I shut down …? I can’t stop it, but I can feel when it’s happening.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘When I talk about … the past … it comes on really quickly. I can already feel it starting just because I’m thinking about talking to you about it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So ask me whatever you want and I’ll try to answer, but we won’t have long. If the shutting down thing happens, come back again tomorrow and we’ll try again.’

  Jake wasn’t certain of the best way forward here. Was a victim’s mental health worth risking in exchange for a lead in his case? ‘If this is going to distress you to that extent, shouldn’t we wait until you’re feeling better?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve decided. I want to do it now. Ask your questions.’

  Jake was relieved, but for his conscience’s sake he needed to offer one more salve. ‘Would you prefer your mother to be here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel right talking about this in front of her.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d understand.’

  Amelia shook her head and sat up firmly. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  ‘All right.’ He put his phone on record and placed it on the table beside her bed.

  Amelia gasped. ‘No! I’ll tell you but you can’t tell this stuff to anyone else.’

  ‘I can’t make that promise, Amelia. If what you tell me is part of the answer that helps me find Ms O’Brien’s killer, or Mr Campbell’s attacker, I may have to testify in court about it. That’s the reality of my job.’

  ‘But it won’t be on the news?’

  ‘If it’s in certain paperwork or said in court, a reporter can report it. But we can request that you remain anonymous if that helps?’

  Tears began rolling down the sides of Amelia’s face. ‘Mum would still figure out it was me.’

  ‘Again, we can stop whenever you need to.’

  She shook her head again and stared Jake in the eye. ‘Just ask.’

  ‘Charlotte said there was a time—when you were around twelve —that you went into your room and stopped coming out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you able to tell me why?’

  Her tears continued to fall like rain. ‘Ms O’Brien took away what’s between my legs.’

  Jake wasn’t sure whether to try to smile reassuringly or look sad in empathy. It didn’t matter—Amelia had turned away from him to stare at the wall. ‘Were you awake when it was done?’

  ‘I just woke up and everything between my legs hurt so much I couldn’t breathe.’

  ‘Was anyone else there, except Ms O’Brien?’

  Whimpering, she shook her head.

  Jake tried to think as quickly as he could of what he needed to ask next. ‘Do you remember what happened immediately before you went to sleep?’

  ‘It was all fuzzy. I couldn’t remember how I ended up in my bed, only that I woke up like that.’

  Was it Ava who did this to Amelia? Where would she have learned the skills to excise large sections of flesh and suture them so neatly?

  ‘Are you sure it didn’t happen at a time when Ms O’Brien was on holiday and Mr O’Brien was looking after you?’

  ‘With the pain I had to just lie there. I couldn’t get out of bed. It was Ms O’Brien who always came in to bring me things.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘She just changed the towels under me, and fed me, and gave me pills and things to drink to make me sleepy. She knew. She was the only one there. She did it.’

  Was Ava involved in some kind of bizarre cult with a ritual tradition of mutilating girls? Or was it an isolated case of the abused becoming the abuser?

  ‘How long did it take you to recover?’

  ‘A long time, I think, because by the time I could go back to doing lessons in the kitchen with Charlotte she was really mad at me. She said I was being mean to her because I wouldn’t come out of my room anymore.’

  What possible reason could anyone have to do this to a child?

  ‘You didn’t explain to Charlotte what had happened?’

  ‘Ms O’Brien said I couldn’t tell her. She said it was for big girls only, and that if I told Charlotte it would be done to her too. I didn’t want it to happen to Charlotte, so I’ve never told her about it.’

&n
bsp; Why would Ava do this to Amelia, but not Charlotte?

  ‘When this happened to you—when you first woke up—had any other part of your body been hurt or damaged?’

  Amelia wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then sat on them. ‘No.’

  ‘At another point in time, did someone hurt your hands or remove your fingernails?’

  Amelia’s hands flew up to cover her face as she deterior­ated into deep, wracking sobs, the sound of her wailing calling her mother to her from outside the room.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ Mary MacDonald flung open the door. ‘What are you doing to her?’

  Jake stood up, plucked his phone from the table, and stepped away from the howling Amelia. ‘Amelia is doing her absolute best to help with my enquiries, Mary—she insisted on it.’ He looked at her, willing all his sympathy for Amelia to be present in his eyes. ‘You should be so proud of her.’

  Mary sat next to Amelia, wrapping both arms around her tightly. ‘I am. Now please go.’ She found one of Amelia’s hands, held it tightly, then began to rock her daughter, humming.

  Stepping into the corridor and closing the door behind him, Jake was greeted by a tableau of Charlotte standing with her back against the wall crying quietly, and Evelyn comforting her by gently stroking her upper arm. Murphy stood a few feet away looking unsure.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Jake said.

  She lifted her head.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. I just hate hearing Amelia suffer so much.’

  ‘You grew up in the same environment as her,’ Evelyn said, ‘and you never carry on like this. Amelia’s just being over-the-top as usual.’

  Jake stared at Evelyn, wondering how she could be so unmoved by the sounds of grief pouring through the door. He could have interpreted her lack of sympathy as professional detachment, but that wasn’t it.

  Although he was no psychologist, even Jake could recognise the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder when they smacked him in the face. The question was, why couldn’t Evelyn Kelly?

  *

  As they eased themselves from their plane seats in Melbourne, Jake gathered that it wasn’t a question Constable Patrick Murphy had ever contemplated. Their conversation during the hour-long flight had revealed that not only did Murphy spend little time thinking about his work, as a rule he spent as little time in thought as possible. His inner world revolved around beer and parties. This was his first trip to Melbourne in a professional capacity. In fact, this was his first trip to Melbourne full stop. He had never before left Tasmania’s shores.

  Jake was shocked. ‘Never?’

  ‘Parents never wanted me to go to the mainland.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s just … you know.’

  ‘No, I really don’t.’

  ‘No one’s supposed to … I mean … Well, parents worry if their kids go to the mainland that they won’t come back.’

  ‘Why?’

  Murphy paused to tug at one ear. ‘I guess almost everyone who went there for school or work never came back. I couldn’t see the point of going myself. Except maybe to sample the nightlife.’

  Jake smiled. ‘More options than what’s on offer in Dunton, that’s for sure.’

  Two hours of airports, traffic jams and exclamations of wonder from Murphy later, they stood on the footpath in front of Matilda’s two-storey, double-brick St Kilda apartment block. The peeling art deco paintwork and bright-pink courtyard furniture lent the building a bohemian air.

  ‘What number?’ Murphy asked, twitching as several drivers on the road behind him blasted their horns.

  ‘Four oh two,’ Jake said and moved to open the front gate.

  ‘Jake!’

  Jake and Murphy both turned as a lean, besuited man strode toward them from a café two doors down the street.

  Shit. Pete. What the hell was he doing here?

  He thrust his arm forward to shake hands with Murphy, forcing Jake to introduce them. ‘Pete, this is Constable Patrick Murphy from my new station in Dunton.’

  Pete’s hazel eyes curled up at the edges. ‘Good to meet you,’ he said to Murphy. Then to Jake, ‘I saw the notice you were in town for an interview. Thought I’d come see if you need anything?’

  What I need is for you to fuck off right now. ‘Pete’s in forensics,’ Jake said aloud to Murphy.

  ‘It’s not that kind of interview,’ Murphy said.

  The constable appeared put out by Pete’s presence too. ‘Listen, we’re running late,’ Jake said. ‘We need to head upstairs now, but maybe we can talk later?’

  Pete smiled. ‘I’ve got the afternoon off. I’ll wait in the Whittington for you to finish. Come join me when you’re ready.’

  A lifetime of experience told Jake that refusing would only compel Pete to push harder. ‘Sure.’

  Jake opened the front gate of the apartment complex.

  *

  The woman who answered the door to the fourth-floor apartment was striking, and certainly not as Jake had pictured her. With bright-blonde hair teased into a Mohawk, piercing, mismatched eyes, and a flowing black and red silk gown, she was also somehow familiar.

  ‘Matilda?’ he said, offering his hand.

  She froze, her ice-blue and dark-brown eyes glazing over, lips parted. Abruptly she shook herself like a dog flicking water off at the beach, then took Jake’s hand and shook it firmly. ‘It’s Lilith now, or Lily for short.’

  Matilda—now Lilith—was the epitome of Melbourne artist chic.

  ‘Of course, my apologies,’ Jake said.

  ‘Come in, have a seat.’

  Lilith led them to an antique green sofa, in front of which was a table with a steaming pot of tea and three cups. She began to pour without asking their preferences.

  ‘So, my past has finally caught up with me,’ she said, catching Jake’s eye as if to test his reaction.

  He nodded, uncertain of what tack to take. She wasn’t what he had expected at all.

  ‘Your art is … interesting,’ Murphy said, pointing to one of the enormous canvases of silver, pink and red lines that graced the studio walls. He clearly had no idea what to make of it.

  Lilith grinned. ‘Take your pain, make it beautiful.’

  Another girl like Amelia … Jake had to tread carefully.

  Almost as if she had read his mind, Lilith said, ‘You don’t have to tiptoe around anything. I’ve come to terms with my body, learnt to accept it and love it as it is.’

  ‘You’re very pretty,’ Murphy said.

  She hmphed. ‘He doesn’t see, does he?’ she said, looking into Jake’s eyes. ‘But you do.’

  ‘I don’t see what?’

  Murphy’s voice had an edge that Jake was coming to recognise. Jake glared him into silence, then returned his attention to Lilith and pushed straight into the interview.

  ‘Can we start from the beginning, when you were found at St Kilda?’

  Lilith, who was looking askance at Murphy, turned her attention back to Jake. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Can you tell me how you got there?’

  ‘I told the truth back then and that hasn’t changed. All I know is I went to bed one night, and the next thing I knew I woke up in a small dark place that was moving and made me nauseous.’

  ‘Did you recognise anything about the place?’

  ‘I didn’t then, but these days I think it must have been the boot of a car.’

  ‘Did you try to get out?’ Murphy asked.

  ‘I must have passed out again, because the next thing after that I woke up on a beach. It turned out to be St Kilda.’

  ‘And then?’ Jake prompted her.

  ‘I’d never been to a beach before, I’d never been to a city before. It was so noisy and full of people—I didn’t know what to do. There were all
these people screaming, but no one was scared. I worked out they were screaming from fun, and I could see lots of people walking and eating.’

  ‘How did you feel?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Terrified, but also like I was on some kind of adventure.’

  ‘How did you come to be in police custody?’

  ‘I was hungry, so I went to where I could see people coming out of a building with food. I went in and saw some of them were leaving food on their tables, so I grabbed it and ran outside. No one stopped me. I thought I could maybe live that way, but after the third time someone caught me and made me sit until a policewoman came.’

  ‘Your file says you refused to say where you came from,’ Murphy said.

  She sipped from her cup. ‘I honestly didn’t know I came from Tasmania until you called yesterday.’

  If that were true, there was no way Lilith could have been involved in Ava’s death. ‘Surely you could remember the names of Ms O’Brien and the other girls?’ Jake said.

  Lilith was very quiet. ‘I didn’t tell them about … her … because I didn’t want to go back.’

  ‘You must have known your own name?’ he pressed.

  ‘When they asked me I said Lilith.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s from the Bible, one of the passages I had to learn. “There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.”’ She leant back in her chair in a mockingly languorous pose. ‘I always liked that idea—that perhaps one day I would find a place that was safe and warm where I could rest. So I called myself Lilith.’

  ‘And how did you get your last name, Haverstock?’ Murphy said.

  ‘I totally lucked out with my foster parents. I didn’t have biological parents …’

  Jake raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, I must have had them, of course.’ She gave a short, throaty laugh. ‘But I have no idea who they were. She always told me they were dead. I didn’t have a last name, I didn’t have a birth certificate—and it’s impossible to do anything without one—so we applied for one when I was sixteen, and I took my parents’ last name.’

  ‘And it was legal?’

  There was a twinkle in her eye. ‘Well, we got it through the system …’

  Jake waited.