EIGHTEEN
Kate Bell stared at the blank expression in the eyes of the photo of the witness the coppers on the island had sent through earlier. She had forgotten all about it in the commotion of the discovery that the victim was one Harold Carrick. Whereas there was still a little doubt (although not to her) to the identity of the victim. She knew the face looking back at her from the iPad screen all too well. At first she had thought for a brief second it had been her own face because she knew it so well.
It was a face she had seen in photos looking at its best and at its most gut wrenching worst. It was eighteen year old Mary Cardille. The killer’s first victim. She looked away from the screen then back again hoping it would change to that of a stranger. But there she was sitting in an arm chair in a lifeboat station on the little island of Widow’s Bay. Even thought she had been brutally murdered seven years ago.
Bell lunged for the radio making Pearce start in shock. She keyed the mic. “Williams? Munro? For Christ sake pick up!” But she was rewarded with a burst of static. “Hello? Widow’s Bay, pick up, over!”
“Kate?” Pearce said and gently touched her arm.
She pulled away and looked at him through tear blinded eyes and half passed half threw the iPad to her mentor. “The, the witness...”
The look on his weary face flashed between several expressions in quick succession as he eyed the photo.
Concern melted into recognition which melted into fear which finally gave way to anger.
“Is this some sort of fucking hoax?” He spat.
Kate Bell wanted desperately to say yes, but that desolate look in Mary Cardille’s eyes would have made that a lie. “She came back,” Bell whispered and keyed the mic again.