CHAPTER ONE
Detective Ellie Cooper climbed out of the unmarked police car and waited for her partner, Luke Baxter, to come around from the passenger side. Drawing her jacket tighter around her slight frame, she tucked an errant strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. The afternoon was cold and dreary, just as it had been the day she’d buried her son. Three years today. It felt like yesterday.
Memories she’d tried hard to hold at bay all day threatened to bring her undone. Familiar pain and anger, combined with deep loss and a yearning for answers surged through her. She compressed her lips against the sudden rush of emotions and made an effort to push the thoughts aside. She was at work. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart.
As usual, she took refuge in her job. She flashed her badge at the huddle of fresh-faced, uniformed policemen who stood inside the blue and white, checked crime scene tape that cordoned off part of the scrubby bank of western Sydney’s Nepean River. Not far away, photographers and TV crews haggled over positions.
“We’re Detectives Cooper and Baxter. Penrith Local Area Command,” Ellie said to one of the young officers. “We’re here about a head.”
The officer nodded and offered his hand. “I’m Constable Jacobs, Richmond Police Station. I took the call from Griffin.”
“Griffin?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, the bloke who found it.” His gaze flicked toward the crowd and his voice turned dry. “And presumably the one who called the media.”
“Where is he?”
“I put him in the back of the squad car. I thought he’d gotten enough camera exposure for today.”
Luke and Ellie looked toward the police cruiser. The profile of a man seated in the back seat could be seen in the late afternoon light.
“What’s his story?” Luke asked.
Jacobs consulted his notebook. “He came down after lunch for a spot of fishing. Apparently, the fish were biting, so he didn’t notice the bag right away.”
“The bag?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, the head’s wrapped in a trash bag.” He glanced at his notebook again. “Anyway, he was here about an hour when he had to take a leak. Walked over there a bit.”
Jacobs pointed in the direction of a stand of bottlebrush trees nearby. Their scrubby branches provided effective cover from the road twenty metres away. “That’s where he says he found it.”
Ellie was relieved the area had been included within the taped barrier and nodded toward the young constable. “Good work on securing the scene, Jacobs.”
He flushed. “Thanks, Detective.”
She looked at Luke. “Let’s go and talk to our fisherman.”
“I’ll get the camera from the car,” he responded. “We need to get a few pictures before we lose the light.” He glanced back at Jacobs. “Anyone call the morgue?”
“Yes. I got onto them straight after I called it into the station.”
“Good thinking, Constable. Shows initiative,” Ellie said. “Why don’t you join me while I talk to our witness?”
Eagerness lit up the young constable’s eyes. “That would be awesome. I can’t wait to apply for the detective’s course. I know I’ve only just come out of the Academy, but it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and—”
“Jacobs,” she interrupted gently, “let’s just get on with it, okay?” Ellie hid her amusement. She wasn’t that old that she couldn’t remember feeling exactly the same way.
Even in the fading light, Elle saw the mortification that flooded his expression and felt a twinge of guilt, but they were wasting time, and in homicides, every second counted.
Turning abruptly, she made her way through the tall grass toward the squad car that was parked a short distance away. Jacobs stumbled behind her.
Ducking under the police tape, she came up to the vehicle and rapped her knuckles on the glass.
The man she presumed was Bill Griffin unwound the window and stared up at her with wary blue eyes. His wild gray hair was windblown and in desperate need of a shampoo. Grizzled cheeks covered in a rough beard emphasized the belligerent thrust of his chin. He smelled like fish, river mud and body odor. A damp hessian bag lay on the ground near the car, along with a fishing rod and tackle box.
“Mr Griffin? I’m Detective Cooper.” Ellie indicated Jacobs behind her. “I think you’ve already met Constable Jacobs?”
“Yeah. I already told ’im everythin’.”
“Okay, but we’ve got a head lying in a trash bag over there and so far, you’re the only witness.”
He shot a furtive glance at the hessian bag and suddenly his reticence made sense.
“I’m not from fisheries,” she added. “I couldn’t care less whether you have a license, how many fish you have in there or how big they are. That’s between you and them. All I’m interested in is how a woman’s head came to be lying in a bag under a tree near the river.” She gave him a hard look. “You got that?”
Griffin gave a reluctant nod and his gaze slid away. “It’s just like I told ’im.” He gestured with a dirty finger to where Jacobs stood beside Ellie. “I was doin’ a spot of fishin’, like I always do. Right ’ere, every Friday. Fish were bitin’ good. I’d gone through ’alf me bait already and I’d only been ’ere an hour.”
He paused to scratch a scab on his arm. “I ’ad to take a piss, just like I told the constable. I pulled in me line and left it on the bank with me tackle box. Then I wandered over to them trees over there. That’s when I found it.” He gave a shudder. “Frightened the shit outta me.”
“What made you open the bag?” Ellie asked, pulling out her notebook.
Griffin shrugged and looked away. “I dunno. Just thought I’d take a look.”
Ellie knew the area was renowned for break and enters and petty thefts. More than likely, he’d hoped to find something he could sell.
She gave him another hard look. “What did you do then?”
“I picked it up. It was bloody ’eavy. Carried it a ways over there, toward me gear.”
“Then you opened it.”
The man bristled. “Got curious, that’s all. Nothin’ wrong with that.” He shuddered again. “Wish to Christ I ’adn’t. That thing’s gonna give me nightmares for months.”
“Can you show me exactly where you found it?”
Not giving him time to refuse, she opened the door and waited for him to step out. She followed closely behind as he walked over to the stand of bottlebrush trees. The night was closing in. Light would soon become an issue.
Luke jogged up beside them. Ellie turned to face him.
“We need to get forensics out here with some lights,” she said. “It’s my guess it’s just been dumped here, but you never know what you might find. On more than one occasion, a cigarette butt at the scene’s been enough to nail a killer.”
Luke issued a brief smile. “Yeah, on CSI, at least.” His expression turned serious. “I’ll give the boss a call. See what he’s organized.”
Luke pulled out his cell phone. Ellie caught up to the fisherman.
“Just ’ere, it was. Right near the trunk of that one.” He pointed to an area at the base of one of the bottlebrushes. There was a faint indentation where the grass had been flattened.
Ellie waited for Luke to finish on the phone before calling out to him.
“Bring your camera over here.” She indicated the flattened area. “This is where our fisherman says he found it.”
Luke closed the short distance between them and came to a standstill beside the witness. He leveled the man with a hard look.
“When did you call the media?”
Griffin’s gaze skittered away and he ducked his head. “It wasn’t me that called ’em.”
Luke snorted. “Right, they just happened to magically appear.” He gave the fisherman a hard look. “You want to hope you don’t have anything in that fishing bag of yours that you shouldn’t. We might not be from fisheries, but it doesn’t mean we don’t know where to find them.”
The man opened his mouth to protest again and Luke cut him off. “Whether you did or whether you didn’t, I don’t give a damn. This is our show now. It’s a murder investigation and we won’t stand for any interference—from you or the media. Got that?”
The man’s gaze fell to his feet. He nodded with reluctance.
“Good.” Luke handed her the camera and she fired off several shots, taking care to photograph the entire area.
She turned to the fisherman. “We need you to come down to the station so we can take a full statement. Constable Jacobs will bring you in.” She turned to the constable who’d come up behind her. “Is that all right with you, Jacobs?”
He nodded emphatically. “Of course, Detective. We’ll leave right away.”
Ellie nodded her thanks. “We’ll be there shortly. Just as soon as forensics arrives and we give them a quick rundown.”
Moments later, headlights swept the riverbank. “Looks like them now,” she murmured.
* * *
Ellie pushed away from the bench and moved closer to the stainless steel gurney where Dr Samantha Wolfe, the head of Forensic Pathology in the Westmead Morgue, examined the head of the unknown woman. The doctor’s glossy black hair was tucked up in its usual position under a blue surgical hat and although Ellie knew the woman wasn’t much older than Ellie, the years spent working with the dead were etched into the lines of fatigue on her face, making her appear older than she was. Even so, Ellie was pleased Samantha had caught the case. The doctor was the best forensic pathologist in Sydney.
“So, what do you think?” Ellie asked, trying hard not to breathe in too deeply of the smell that was unique to the morgue. It was well after nine, and Ellie was feeling the effects of the long day. And it wasn’t over yet. She’d told Luke to go home. No sense in both of them hanging around. At least one of them ought to get some sleep.
Samantha peered at her from behind clear plastic safety glasses.
“There’s no trauma to the head, as such.” The doctor sent her a wry look. “If you don’t count the fact that it’s been severed from its body.”
Ellie smiled reluctantly. There was something very weird about trading jokes while a woman’s head lay on a gurney between them.
With gloved hands, Samantha examined the girl’s face. “She’s definitely Caucasian. I’d hazard a guess she’s of European or Mediterranean descent. From the broadness of her features and the olive tones of her skin, even taking into account its deterioration, she’s not an English rose.”
“How long do you think she’s been dead?”
She shrugged. “Hard to put an exact time of death. This time of year, tissue breakdown is slowed down by the cold. We’ve had some fairly severe frosts over the past few weeks. A bit like being kept in a freezer. If I had to guess, I’d say two, maybe three weeks. She’s still in pretty good shape, but as I said, the cold weather would have something to do with that.”
With a clank, the doctor dropped a small metal object into an empty kidney dish lined up beside several others on a trolley next to the gurney.
Ellie leaned in closer. “What’s that?”
“An earring. There’s one in the other ear, too.” A few seconds later, another object clattered into the dish. Ellie hunted around for a plastic evidence bag.
“Over near the door.” Samantha indicated the rack of shelves on the far side of the room beside the door through which Ellie had entered.
“I’ll take these with me,” she said scooping them up with gloved fingers and dropping the jewelry carefully into the evidence bag. “They might help us identify her.”
“No sign of the rest of her?”
Ellie shook her head. “Not yet.” She sighed wearily. “I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
“Come and look at this.”
The doctor’s tone had sharpened. Ellie’s heart accelerated. “What is it?”
Samantha was working her way through the woman’s honey-blond, matted hair with a pair of tweezers. Bending closer, she extracted a small particle and dropped it into a clean kidney dish.
“I don’t know, but her hair’s full of it.” She continued to part sections of hair, retrieving more and more slivers.
Ellie moved closer and peered into the dish. It was difficult to say what they were. Pinkish-brown in color, the particles were irregular in shape and size, the biggest about half the size of her smallest fingernail.
“I’ll send them to the lab.” Samantha indicated with her chin toward the other dishes lined up beside the gurney. “Along with those. Hair and tissue samples, blood samples, mouth swabs. Until someone comes forward with an identification, it’s the best I can do.”
Ellie suppressed a sigh. Someone out there was missing a daughter, a sister—maybe even a mother. “I appreciate your help, Samantha. Any clues on how it was removed?”
The doctor turned the head until it rested on its side. Ellie tried not to look at the single, milky-brown eye as it stared sightlessly up at her. Pointing with her tweezers, Samantha indicated the area where the woman’s neck should have been.
“Have a look here. See the striations in the vertebrae? It looks to me like it’s been sawn off.”
Ellie swallowed and shook her head. “What sort of a monster does something like that?”
“I’m afraid it gets worse.” Samantha poked at the ragged, exposed flesh. “There’s still blood in this tissue.” She raised her head and stared at Ellie. “Have you ever seen a dead heart pump?”