The Parable of the Mustard Seed Page 20

  Naomi still didn’t look convinced.

  Brian reached into his pocket and drew out his wallet. He opened it up, and pulled out one of his business cards. Took a pen and wrote his mobile number on the back. “This is my name here, on the front, and my office number. And this number on the back is where you can find me at any time, okay?”

  He slid the card across the desk, and Naomi took it and clutched it as tightly in her skinny fist. Her lower lip wobbled.

  “Now let’s go and get you some chips and lollies for the drive, hmm?”

  She nodded, and suddenly looked very, very small.

  John was woken by his phone before his alarm went off. Daylight was barely creeping in at the edges of the darkness, softening it into a pale grey light that heralded in the nascent dawn.

  “Liz,” John said, swinging his legs over the side of his bed as he sat up. The soles of his feet touched the cool floor. “What’s up?”

  “Can you come in early?” Liz asked. “The media just broke the story.”

  “Shit. I thought they were holding off on that.”

  “Yeah.” Liz sounded terse. “Those fuckers.”

  There was no real heat in her tone. They’d been on borrowed time since the day they’d found the remains. John had seen the media van there at the time. It was probably a miracle they’d held off this long. And while John did actually support the idea of the public’s right to know, he hated those times when the media used it as a battering ram, because sometimes the public’s right to know put investigations in jeopardy. And sometimes it was nothing that dramatic at all. John still remembered going to deliver a death message back when he’d been a first-year constable, and hearing the woman crying before he’d even reached the door because she’d seen footage of the accident on television and recognised her husband’s crushed car. John had yet to figure out how the public’s right to know was more important than that woman’s right to have the news broken to her gently.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll grab a quick shower and come straight in.”

  “As much as I hate to say it, don’t stop for coffees today,” Liz said. “See you soon.”

  John was out of the door in ten minutes, his hair still damp and his shirt sticking to the small of his back where he’d missed drying a patch of skin after his shower. He ate a muesli bar while he drove, and checked news sites on his phone at red lights.

  Woman’s body found in Milton park.

  Grave fears for missing tourists in Cape York.

  Human remains discovered at Jimboomba.

  John hit the link for the article. There was nothing in it that mentioned Ethan Gray or the Children of Galilee, but it didn’t have to, did it? Because if Leon Harrison or Ben Quartermain had found this article, they’d know the police were closing in on them and that it was only a matter of time before they got a knock on the door. And if Ethan Gray had seen it, he’d know exactly why Liz and John had been poking around. John doubted any of them would give a fuck about violating parole and running if they knew there were murder changes coming for them.

  And while Caleb already knew, John hoped that seeing the media speculation—because of course there would be speculation—wouldn’t send him on another downward spiral. Caleb was so strong, but John wasn’t sure he could take another hit right now and stay on his feet.

  Jesus. This had the potential to turn into a total clusterfuck.

  The guy in the car behind John’s leaned on the horn, and John gave an apologetic wave as he accelerated through the green light.

  Ten minutes later he was climbing the steps at work and checking his watch. It was just past six, and that muesli bar wasn’t going to cut it for long. Hopefully he’d get the chance to grab something for breakfast later, since he hadn’t had time to pack a lunch either. Then again, something told him it was going to be one of those days where he survived on station coffee and vending machine snacks.

  He entered the CPIU office, and was surprised to find a bunch of people already at their desks.

  He raised his eyebrows as Liz walked over to him. “What’s all this?”

  “This is the boss suddenly approving an actual op,” Liz said. “It’s not just you and me on this now. We’ve got eight of us.”

  “That’s the good news,” John said. “Hit me with the bad.”

  Liz snorted. “Still no ID on the body, which doesn’t give us enough for an arrest warrant. I’ve got Aaron and Clare digging through phone records in the hope we can pick up the Three Stooges on parole violations, and we’re checking their internet history as well. We got a warrant for that, at least.”

  “That’s better than nothing, I guess,” John said.

  “I’ve also got plainclothes crews sitting off their addresses,” Liz said. “I don’t want these arseholes to give us the slip now. Except…” She shrugged.

  “Except?”

  “Except they already might have,” Liz said. “Harrison and Quartermain last checked in with Probation and Parole last Thursday, and they’re not due again for another three days. And we saw Ethan Gray in person on Sunday. I’ve got people on their addresses, John, but no fucking guarantee they’re still inside them. All three of them could have already done the bolt.”

  “Maybe,” John said, but he didn’t like to consider it. “We might have stirred things up when we started talking to the group again.”

  “If we did, then we know they’re still in contact with each other,” Liz said. “It’d be nice to have some phone records proving it though. Something to get them on until we can ID the body.”

  “So where do you want to start?” John asked.

  Liz sucked in a breath. “I want another go at Ethan Gray. Ideally, I’d love to send someone to break his fucking door down and arrest him, but we don’t have enough for that, and he’s hardly likely to sit down for a friendly little chat, is he?”

  “Yeah, I doubt it.”

  Liz chewed her lip for a moment. “Fuck this. We need to link the body to those fuckers. This is bullshit.”

  “Okay,” John said. “How about we keep doing what we’ve been doing? We pull whoever is willing in for a friendly chat, except now we tell them we’ve found a body, and we make sure they know that if they offer us any information about what happened to Simon, we’ll be a lot nicer to them than if we find out later they’ve been hiding anything.”

  “Yeah,” Liz said. She exhaled heavily. “Yeah, I think that’s all we’ve got right now, isn’t it? We’re treading water until we get that ID.”

  “We’ve done that plenty of times before.”

  Liz nodded. “Right?”

  They got to work.

  Paulette Fisher was a small, grey woman who wore her guilt like a second skin. She’d been like so many of the other Children of Galilee—hopeful, optimistic and, ultimately, gullible. John had felt sorry for her the first time he’d spoken to her eight years ago, and he felt sorry for her now. Paulette hadn’t been charged with anything and she’d never been in prison, but she carried around more remorse than those who had.

  “Oh, he was the most beautiful boy,” she said now, her face crumbling a little when John asked about Simon. “All of the kids were beautiful, so kind and sweet with each other, but Simon had this spark about him, you know? And he brought it out in the others too. Caleb just lit up when they were together.”

  John’s chest ached at the thought of fifteen-year-old Caleb, nursing his secret crush at the same time as he panicked at the thought of hellfire.

  “When Ethan said Simon ran away, I remember I was so upset.” Paulette curled her narrow fingers around her cup of tea. “I was upset that he’d decided to forsake our community for the outside world. I was upset that he would endanger his soul. And then…” She shook herself. “And then a few days later the police came, and it was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who found Caleb?”

  John nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “I…” She blinked, and tears welled. “When I
saw you bring him out, do you know I thought there’d been some sort of terrible accident? I just couldn’t believe it. Even now I can’t believe how wilfully blind I was. I can’t believe there were people around me, children who were scared, and who were being abused, and I just had my head in the clouds and never noticed a thing!”

  John remembered how she’d cried that first night in the holding cell. How she’d cried again all through every one of her interviews, asking over and over if Caleb was okay. She’d never denied the idea that Simon was dead. Not after seeing Caleb. John had frankly been amazed that any of them had clung to the delusion that Ethan Gray was their saviour, but Paulette had been in the minority with her immediate disavowal of the Children of Galilee. Most of them had clung harder and harder, at least for a while.

  And some of them, John suspected, still did.

  “But you never saw any abuse?” John asked her now.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve had eight years to go over everything I saw in the months I was there, but everyone seemed so happy, and so at peace.” She shook her head. “I was so blind.”

  “You never did anything to get in trouble?” John asked her.

  “No, I guess I didn’t.” Paulette sighed. “It seems crazy now, but I loved it there. I loved the rules and the routine. I loved the feeling of being in a community. I think I must have looked so hard for that, that when I thought I’d found it, I didn’t question it.” She wiped her eyes and said in a shaky voice, “I’m a lot more cynical now.”

  John nodded again.

  Weren’t they all?

  John took a break at around eleven, and went on a lunch run to Subway for the rest of the team. He sent a text to Caleb while he waited, to let him know how much he was missing him, and got a selfie of a smiling Caleb and Cricket in reply. John stood there in the line at Subway, grinning like a fool at his phone, and the girl behind the counter had to call out to get his attention. When he produced the long list from his pocket, she looked as though she regretted it.

  When he got back to the office he distributed all the subs and then ate his in front of the whiteboard in the incident room. Stared at the old mugshots of Ethan Gray, Leon Harrison, and Ben Quartermain, and hoped he’d get the chance to cuff at least one of them. There was something satisfying about being the one to do that. Something in the click of the hardware that said, more than any words could, Got you now, you fucker.

  When he headed outside into the main office, there was a guy standing there he didn’t know. Young guy, tall, with slightly stooped shoulders, holding a folder with an iPad balanced on top. He was wearing a firearm on his belt and an ID on a checkered lanyard around his neck, but John couldn’t read his name from this far away.

  He closed the distance between them. “Can I help you?”

  “Hey,” the guy said. “Nathan Lockland. I’m from Roma Street CIB. I’m looking for a Brian Keller?”

  John blinked at him. “Brian retired a few years back. He lives up at Maroochydore now.”

  “Figures,” Lockland said. “You mind if I show this around?”

  “We’re pretty bloody busy today, but knock yourself out,” John said with a shrug. “What’ve you got?”

  “Homicide in Milton,” Lockland said. “I’ve got a victim found in a park this morning. Her purse is missing, so I’ve got no ID, but we found this in the bottom of her backpack.”

  He opened up his folder and pulled out a sealed plastic evidence bag with Brian’s old business card inside.

  John took it and turned it over, his heart suddenly pounding faster. There was a phone number written on the back in Brian’s still-familiar scrawl, several of the numbers faded now, the card worn and soft with wear.

  “Have you got a photo of your victim?”

  “Nothing official yet.” But Lockland pulled out his phone, and thumbed through his photo album. He handed the phone to John.

  If he’d passed her in the street, John wouldn’t have recognised her. She’d been a skinny kid, narrow-eyed and sharp-faced. This young woman was overweight, with purple-dyed hair. One side of her face was swollen and abraded, as though she’d been dragged over rough bitumen. But it was her.

  “It’s Naomi,” John said. He reached behind him with his spare hand to grab a desk to steady himself. His vision swam. “Naomi Dobbs.”

  “You know her?” Lockland asked, his voice sharpening.

  “Liz!” John called. He didn’t think he raised his voice that much, but everyone in the office turned to stare. “Liz, Jesus Christ.” Fear stabbed him in the gut, and left him swaying.

  There had been two witnesses to Simon’s murder: the skinny little girl who’d seen men moving what might have been a body, and the boy who’d been in the tank with Simon at the time. And when it came to the timing of Naomi’s murder, John didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Caleb!” John thrust Lockland’s phone back at him, and fumbled with his own. It took him two attempts to unlock it. He dialled Caleb’s number, and waited, his heart pounding, for Caleb to answer him.

  Nothing.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  “It’s Naomi,” he said to Liz as she strode over toward him. “They killed Naomi.”

  Lockland looked back and forth between them. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Shut up a second,” Liz said, making her own call. “Yeah, I need a general duties crew sent immediately to an address, please. Code One.” She rattled off Caleb’s address. “Try him again,” she said, and it took John a moment to realise he was talking to her. “John, try him again.”

  No answer.

  He shook his head at Liz.

  “Aaron!” Liz called across the room. “You and Clare, with us. Let’s move. Pete, get the crews sitting off our suspects’ addresses to get in there and arrest them now.”

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” Lockland asked again.

  “We can talk in the car,” Liz said. “Let’s go.”

  They raced downstairs to the car park.

  John sometimes joked that Liz drove like a bat out of hell, but today it felt like she was Sunday driving, even with the siren screaming, and the car whining and vibrating with the speed they were doing. John kept his eye out as they approached intersections, but once they were on the motorway Liz floored it. Most of the traffic was heading into the city, not out of it, so they had a reasonably clear run.

  “You ever heard of the Children of Galilee?” Liz asked.

  “No,” came Lockland’s voice from the back of the car.

  “It was a cult,” Liz said. “They got busted up eight years ago. A few of them ended up in prison for child abuse and assault. The thing is, they also killed a kid, except we could never prove it because both our child witnesses fell apart in interviews, and we didn’t have a body. Last week we got the body and sometime last night the media ran the story.”

  “My vic is one of your witnesses?”

  Lockland caught on quick. John might have appreciated that at any other time. As it was, he kept calling Caleb’s number and kept getting no answer. He hesitated, and then called Darren instead. It went to voicemail, which wasn’t unusual when Darren was working on a site. Construction was noisy.

  “Darren, it’s John. Call me urgently.”

  “That’s right,” Liz said to Lockland. “And we’re heading for the other one’s house now.”

  “I need to make some calls,” Logan said. “Do we have an ID on the suspects?”

  “The cult leader was Ethan Gray,” Liz said. “Lives in Toowoomba. Our two other most likely candidates are Leon Harrison and Ben Quartermain, both with north Brisbane addresses. All three of them are recent parolees.”

  “Got it.”

  John glanced back to see Logan on his iPad, looking up the names.

  A moment later, as they screamed down the motorway, Lockland was on his phone. “Yeah, I need you to get a BOLO put on for three suspects and any vehicles registered to them. I�
�m gonna send you the link to the names now.” A pause. “Fucked if I know. Just passed Yatala, I think.”

  It normally took over an hour to get to Caleb’s house from Logan. Liz got them there in forty minutes, and John felt the weight of every one of them.

  There was a police car blocking the street outside the house, and another one pulled into the driveway. A neighbour was standing on the footpath, hands on his hips as he gazed at the show. Both police cars had their lights still flashing when Liz pulled up. John was out of the car before Liz even turned the engine off, his heart in his mouth as he raced up the familiar front steps.

  There was a uniformed copper in the doorway to the enclosed front veranda. John could see that the door was swinging open, the hinges busted.

  A squeal of brakes in the street and the wail of a siren: Aaron and Clare were pulling up too.

  “John Faimu,” he said to the copper on the door. “Logan CPIU.” There was a dark stain on the copper’s shirt, and the sudden sharp scent of blood hit John in the face. “Wh—what have you got inside?”

  Liz and Lockland hurried up the stairs behind him.

  The copper on the door looked young. She must have only been in her early twenties. She was small and blonde. “There was nobody here when we got here,” she said. “The neighbour saw a white van leaving the street. There’s…” She stepped aside and gestured at the veranda floor. It was covered in blood.

  “Oh, Jesus.” John felt his world tip, and Liz grabbed him firmly on the upper arm.

  “It’s from the dog,” the blonde copper said. She shook her head, her eyes wide. “They stabbed the dog.”

  No. Caleb couldn’t come home to that. Not Cricket.

  John almost laughed at the thought.

  Caleb couldn’t come home to that? There was no fucking guarantee Caleb was coming home at all, was there? Because they’d failed him. John had failed him. All those years promising to keep him safe, and John had failed him.