Fatal Impact (20 page)

‘That can happen at the hospital. Later.’ Anya didn’t want any more contamination. And no relative should have to identify Len’s remains in the state he was currently in. Hospital staff would cover the wounds with sheets to minimise the impact on a family member. This would be their last memory of their loved one.

‘He’s here now. Let’s not make this any more traumatic,’ McGinley almost growled.

‘The scene’s been contaminated enough. No one touches anything,’ Anya ordered.

Ticking the boxes and filling in the paperwork seemed like all the policeman was interested in. He seemed to have no regard for what had happened or how the death had occurred. These moments were critical in establishing the truth and could save a lifetime of questions from other police and family members, not to mention insurance companies and lawyers. It would be in Craig’s best interests to let them do their jobs.

Before Anya could stop him, McGinley further exposed Len’s face. The sergeant was beyond incompetent and destructive to the scene.

Craig blessed himself and said a prayer. When he had finished, he wiped tears from his eyes.

McGinley was impatient to get on with what needed to be done. ‘I need to ask you about Len’s gun. Is there anything distinctive about it?’

Anya had seen it briefly, from close up to the barrel, but wasn’t aware of anything specific.

Craig stared towards the fireplace. ‘Dad got it made for his twenty-first. His initials are engraved under the barrel. The butt was carved in a flourish of the South Esk River.’

There was no doubt the shotgun was unique. Craig stepped towards the weapon in the corner, leaving muddy prints in his wake. ‘That’s it. I’d know it anywhere. It never left his side.’

‘Don’t touch anything!’ Anya urged, but Craig already had hold of the weapon. ‘First Mum and Dad, then he lost Patsy.’

McGinley made no attempt to stop him. He seemed more concerned with comforting the brother than investigating Len’s death. ‘When was the last time you saw or spoke to him?’

‘This afternoon. I heard about the department of health closing him down. I rang to tell him it was just a setback.
I offered to pay for all his legal expenses. He said he’d think about it .
. .’
Craig shook his head. ‘I was going to come over tonight, then word came through about the fire.’

The older Dengate bent over and cried. Hammond slowly led him out the front door.

Anya took more photos with McGinley’s camera, looking for any evidence of blowback blood spatter.

32

A
fter all the sample testing and photographs, the body was removed. Roswell was delivered to Jeanette, who had been called back to check on stock at PT.

Spent, Anya ventured into the kitchen and removed her gloves.

Simon sat next to Jocelyn. She clutched an untouched cup of tea between her hands. Dried blood stained her fingers and the front of her shirt. There was no blood splatter on her face or clothing, nothing to suggest she’d been present when Len was shot. That was a vital observation.

‘Simon, can you witness and record that Mum doesn’t have any blood spray or drops on her face?’

‘I can do better than that.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘Jocelyn, do you mind?’

Anya felt a crushing tightness in her chest seeing Jocelyn staring into space, a hollow version of herself. Len’s death would have been difficult enough for her to deal with. Finding his body compounded the trauma.

Simon clicked some photos and emailed them, presumably to a work address.

Craig Dengate had not wanted to leave the property until Len’s body had been taken care of. The case was, by definition, coronial, and an autopsy would be performed at the first opportunity. He would forever be haunted by the memories of blood on the floor and the last time he saw his brother’s face.

Anya knelt down and lightly touched her mother’s back. Jocelyn didn’t respond or even react to her daughter’s presence. She was virtually catatonic.

‘Can’t believe Len would shoot himself,’ Craig said, to no one in particular.

Only that morning, Anya had described Emily Quaid’s death to the distraught Len. It was possible the guilt he’d felt over the deaths from the E. coli had overwhelmed him. He was facing total ruin, from his point of view, and had already suffered the loss of parents and his fiancée. Even winning a lawsuit against PT couldn’t bring back the company he had built from scratch. The organic status of the land was already ruined.

Death wasn’t the answer, Anya knew. The people he left behind would suffer even more.

‘Guess Len went out with one big act of payback.’ McGinley helped himself to the coffee pot on the stove. Craig pulled up a chair near the wall.

Anya wondered if anyone had bothered to check if there were more than one mug out when they arrived at the scene. Had Len entertained anyone before his death? Had he eaten, been interrupted? All those things were critical to the investigation. Her focus, however, remained on Jocelyn’s mental and emotional wellbeing.

Simon challenged his superior. ‘How is suicide payback?’

‘Makes everyone else suffer. It’s gutless. Not being able to face the consequences of your actions.’ McGinley waited for acknowledgement.

None came.

‘Doesn’t anybody else get it? It’s obvious and it all fits. Len lit the fire tonight, to sabotage PT,’ the sergeant bleated. ‘Didn’t you smell the petrol on him?’

Simon didn’t buy it. ‘Why would he set fire to those fields?’

‘Everyone knows Len had whacky ideas about PT. Look at the way he accused them of contaminating his crop. He had motive and opportunity,’ McGinley was on a roll. ‘PT has an electric fence. It’s too high to get past. Setting fire to the Wilson boundary meant it easily spread to PT’s crops and feed lots.’ The coffee he poured looked more like syrup than a drink. ‘Before he checks himself out, he tries to destroy the people who ruined him. He wasn’t fiddling while it burnt like that Nero character. Maybe he thought he could but then got the guilts when it became so out of hand. Who knows what a deranged mind really thinks? Oh, sorry Craig. No disrespect.’

Anya recalled Len’s comment at the meeting with Alison Blainey. That if he went down, he was taking PT with him.

Craig Dengate lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked broken. ‘He was against violence. I didn’t think he’d do anything this crazy.’

Anya wondered. He’d held a loaded gun to her head only days before.

‘That makes absolutely no sense,’ Simon argued. ‘Len wouldn’t use a pesticide because it harmed insects. He was all bluff and wind. I don’t believe he’d risk anyone getting hurt, even by accident.’

Jocelyn raised her gaze a little, as if she were listening.

‘In terms of suspects for lighting the fires, the suicidal pyromaniac we stopped to has to be number one. He tried to burn Anya alive with petrol and had a backup.’

Jocelyn turned her head. Her voice was strained. ‘What man?’

‘From what I hear,’ McGinley slammed the mug back on the sink, ‘that dead guy had a plastic toy water squirter. But you didn’t know that until after you’d blown a hole in his chest.’

Anya was about to argue the facts when Jocelyn spoke again.

‘Alison Blainey said there was an attack planned for tonight. A group from POWER was just supposed to cut down the wheat with whipper snippers as a way of protesting against GM experimental crops.’

‘Sounds like Len was keen to jump on a bandwagon,’ McGinley said. ‘He went along, got carried away and started the fire. Then he panics, thinking someone’s seen him. He comes back here and–’

Craig hung his head as Samir came into the kitchen via the back door.

‘Is it true what people are saying?’ He stood, hat in his hand. ‘About Mr Len?’

Anya rose. ‘We’re so sorry. Len died tonight.’

The foreman seemed to be frozen in disbelief.

‘Don’t believe what anyone says.’ Jocelyn stared at the sergeant. ‘I know for a fact Len didn’t kill himself.’

Craig Dengate pushed his chair back slowly. ‘There’s only one way you could possibly know for sure Doctor . . . You’re the one with his blood on your hands.’

Jocelyn threw her chair back as she lunged towards Len’s brother. ‘You’ve always been a fool. You’d sell Len out in a heartbeat.’

Anya quickly moved between them.

Dengate’s face was bright red, his lip curled. ‘Everyone here is a witness. She isn’t denying it.’

Sergeant McGinley hoisted his trousers. ‘This isn’t helping. Jocelyn, if you know something, damn well say it.’

She took a series of rapid breaths. ‘He wouldn’t have done this. To PT or to me.’

‘I have to agree. If there was ever a time to take revenge,’ Simon concluded, ‘it was when his Patsy died. We’re talking about someone who testified
for
Reuben Millard, the man accused of killing Len’s fiancée. Does anyone really believe a man like that was capable of revenge?’

There was no answer.

Jocelyn straightened her shirt and slowly walked out the back door. ‘I want to go home. You can get my formal statement in the morning.’

‘I’ll drop you home,’ Simon offered. ‘I’m sorry. By morning, I’ll probably be on suspension pending the shooting investigation.’

The implication was that McGinley would be the one to take her statement.

Anya wanted to go back and check the lounge room again. Something bothered her about the whole scenario. She thought her mother could probably do with some time to herself too.

‘How are your burns?’ she asked Simon.

‘Our car’s automatic, power steering. The bandages won’t affect my driving. You do what you have to here. I’ll look after your mum.’

As Hammond and Jocelyn headed out of the house, McGinley took a call and listened with little input before hanging up. ‘That was the homestead. Sounds like the fire’s out, but it’s one hell of a mess. Millions of dollars’ worth of damage, they reckon.’

‘Any protesters or volunteers injured or not accounted for?’ Anya asked.

His phone rang again. ‘Right. Launceston Crime Scene are out on Langleys Road. Hobart detectives are right behind.’ He moved past Samir and called out the door to Simon, ‘Hammond, better brace yourself. You started one hell of a shitstorm.’

Anya had a thought and rushed out to the front of the house. She caught her mother getting into the muddy blue Mazda. Jocelyn wound down the passenger side window. ‘Mum, I need to know. Where was the gun when you found Len?’

Without hesitation, she answered. ‘Between his legs.’

‘Are you sure? I know this is difficult, but it’s incredibly important. Can you remember
exactly
where it was?’

Jocelyn closed her eyes. ‘I’m so tired. So very tired. I need to rest.’

‘I know, Mum, but we need to understand. Think hard. Please.’

Her eyes opened. ‘The barrel was leaning on the lounge between his legs, and the shoulder piece was against the inside of his right leg. That’s right. I had to push it away to drag him on to the floor.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Anya moved some hair out of her mother’s eyes. ‘I’ll be home to check on you when I can.’

‘Check the generator,’ her mother said.

‘What generator. Why?’

‘He could have heard about the fire and got it ready in case the power was cut.’

Anya went back inside to go over the scene again.

33

A
nya entered her mother’s house at 4 am. The front door was unlocked. She left the borrowed boots out on the verandah and checked inside. Jocelyn lay asleep on top of her bed, fully dressed apart from her shoes. Anya quietly stepped to the linen cupboard and removed a spare blanket and clean towel. Her mother didn’t rouse when Anya covered her to the shoulders and closed the door behind her.

Anya undressed in the main bathroom. For the first time she noticed red marks on her skin where the petrol had chemically burnt her legs. Dark bruises covered her knees and forearms from when she had been thrown forward onto hard ground when the police car exploded.

She washed off the mud in the shower and scrubbed her skin, careful to avoid the chemical burns. It took two washes with shampoo for her hair to feel close to clean again. She towel-dried her hair and pulled out yoga pants and a T-shirt from her packed case. The rain had passed, but the wind whistled through the bathroom window. With a mohair blanket from the lounge wrapped around her shoulders, she unlatched the back door.

The wind picked up and buffeted her hair around her face. She sat on the bench, knees tucked up to her chin. Without city lights or clouds to hinder the view, the stars looked like tiny droplets of paint splattered from a child’s paintbrush thousands of miles away. Her grandfather had once said that everyone had the ability to travel through time. All they had to do was look at a star. By the time its light reached your eyes, it was already thousands of years in the past. The concept impressed Ben just as much as it had Anya.

She wanted to hear her son’s voice. And the truth was, she missed Martin more than she had imagined. She would call them in a few hours, when they were both awake.

Anya’s thoughts turned to Len Dengate and the ramifications of his death. Whether Beatrice Quaid would ever receive justice for Emily, and if they would ever understand how the spinach crop had become infected in the first place. There was no justice in anything that had happened in the past few days.

She heard the door to her mother’s bedroom squeak and the padding of feet. Anya headed inside. Jocelyn wandered around the living room, picking up and putting down files.

‘Mum?’

Jocelyn seemed oblivious as she paced and mumbled to herself. Suddenly, she turned on her heels and shuffled back up the corridor, past her bedroom, files still in hand.

‘Mum?’

Her mother opened the door and stepped into Miriam’s room.

Anya ventured to the doorway. Jocelyn had curled up on the bed and was breathing deeply, files clutched to her chest.

She was asleep, and had been all along. Anya had never known her mother to sleepwalk. It could explain the exhaustion in the daytime. Anya covered her with the mohair blanket and went to bed herself, leaving the door open.

By morning, Jocelyn was in her own bed again. Anya had woken at eight, unable to settle. Sleepwalking could explain some of the things her mother thought were out of place. She put three teaspoons of black tea leaves into a china pot and took it to the kettle. After that, she turned the pot three times.

‘You do that exactly like your grandmother.’

Anya hadn’t heard her mother enter the kitchen.

‘She taught me. Guess some habits are hard to break. Do you still put in a teaspoon per cup and one for the pot?’

‘Is there any other way?’ Jocelyn rubbed her eyes. ‘What time did you get in?’

‘Around four.’ Anya collected two mugs and a strainer from the draining tray by the sink. She poured the tea and put sugar and milk into both of them.

‘It’s as if you’re channelling Grandma right now,’ Jocelyn said. ‘When we were upset or sad, she’d always say a cup of tea would make everything better. Who’d have guessed science would prove her right years later?’

‘Grandma always had good instincts.’ Anya stirred the drinks. In the light, her mother looked more tanned than before.

‘I saw your bag was packed in the bedroom. Have you been called to another case?’

Anya sat next to Jocelyn at the table. ‘After what you said yesterday, before the fire, and Len .
. .
I thought it was better if I went to a hotel. I wanted to see how you were first.’

‘Len is dead, dammit, and you’re offended by something I might have said?’ She held her mug with both hands. ‘I won’t apologise. Martin is a schmuck.’

Anya sat back. Her mother didn’t seem to remember why she’d driven off, or the other hateful things she’d said. The trauma of finding Len’s body must have pushed it from her mind.

When she’d returned to Len’s living room the previous night, Anya had thought about how quickly the scene had been contaminated and how difficult it now was to work out what had taken place. Multiple people had traipsed through, including police, ambulance officers and even Craig Dengate. Alison Blainey and her mother had been at the scene before anyone else. The blood stains were still on her hands.

No other rooms had been photographed or video recorded. Anya spent the remaining time at the house filming. The entire house was tidy, but no one had seemed to check if anything was missing. In contrast, the Quaid house had been far better examined when Emily’s body was found.

When Jocelyn was up to it, Anya would show her footage in case she could identify something out of place.

The Hobart homicide detectives had attended the scene by the road with flamethrower man but hadn’t come to Len Dengate’s house overnight – at least not while Anya was there. Suspicions about the death might otherwise have never come to light.

Jocelyn blew on her tea. ‘Len had every reason to live.’ She bent across and whispered, ‘There were people who wanted him out of the way. Some very powerful people.’

‘Why are you whispering?’

Jocelyn frowned, and pointed at the walls and ceiling. Her mother thought the house was bugged.

Anya sighed. The conspiracy theory again. She tried not to confront her mother, but lead her to a logical conclusion.

‘Mum, the house isn’t bugged. Sometimes tragedies happen. Len was a good man under incredible pressure.’ It bothered her that a suicide note hadn’t been found, yet there had been that small remnant of paper in Len’s hand. ‘When you arrived, was there a note in his hand?’

‘No! That’s what they want you to think. That he committed suicide. Len was under pressure. Because he knew they were after him. They’d already got to Reuben and Patsy.’

These were delusions. Her mother was more unwell than she had imagined. ‘Please, Mum, you have to stop this,’ she begged. ‘Or you’ll lose your medical registration. You need help.’

Jocelyn’s description of the gun placement when she found Len was what had convinced Anya that Len’s death was suspicious. It was now obvious that Jocelyn’s version of events was completely unreliable.

‘Stop what?’ Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.

Anya pressed her fingers into her temples. Tiredness and frustration boiled over. ‘Stop pretending that you’re all right and the rest of the world is at fault.’ She took a strained breath. ‘Len was your friend. He was in crisis and you think it was a huge conspiracy to ruin him, then someone murdered him. You’re delusional. You have to know you need help.’

Jocelyn’s chin began to quiver. ‘That’s it then. You think I’m losing my mind. Just like my mother and aunts.’

‘Mum.’ She knelt down to plead. ‘Look at the files all over the house. This isn’t you. You’re even sleepwalking. That’s how things get rearranged in Miriam’s room. Last night you took two files in there and slept holding them to your chest.’

Elbows on the table, Jocelyn buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Anya placed a hand on her mother’s back. ‘I can help. If you let me.’

‘Fine. First, I need you to hear me out. I deserve at least that.’

Anya lifted herself back on to the chair. For the sake of peace, she would listen.

Jocelyn was already on her feet, headed for the back door. She slipped on her gumboots.

‘You coming? There’s a spare pair in the shed.’

Reluctantly, Anya followed. Obviously, Jocelyn believed the house was bugged.

‘After this, have me committed, do whatever. If you won’t believe me, no one will.’

Jocelyn grabbed a crowbar from a tool box under the wooden bench and marched towards the chicken pen.

‘What are you doing?’ Anya reached for her arm.

‘Len would never kill himself.’ She pulled away and opened the latch to the wooden door. Chickens flurried as she entered.

This was insane. Anya ducked her head and followed, closing the door behind them.

Jocelyn was already at the roosting area. With a shovel from inside the back section, Jocelyn scooped away mounds of straw, shredded paper and manure. She tossed the shovel aside and dropped to her knees.

Anya felt helpless. She believed her mother was out of control but had no idea how to stop her without causing physical harm.

Jocelyn hacked at a section of wooden flooring with the crowbar as chickens squawked. Anya decided the only choice was to call the mental health crisis team, and turned back towards the house.

A crack sounded. Her mother made a yelping sound.

Anya hurried back to her mother’s side. Blood dripped from her left hand.

‘Now I can prove I’m not mad.’

‘Okay, Mum. First, let me look at your hand.’

‘Not until you see these.’ The broken floorboards lay to the side, exposing a plastic-covered, taped-up bag of documents. Cautiously, Anya lifted it out.

Jocelyn sat back. ‘Read these and tell me I’m crazy.’

Anya was more concerned with the cut hand.

Jocelyn held her palm upwards. Anya noticed something for the first time. ‘Let me look at your other one.’ The creases in the palms of Jocelyn’s hands were dark.

‘Do you use a self-tanning cream?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Anya realised why her mother had been so exhausted, had a racing heart, appeared so tanned and had lost so much weight.

‘How long have your palms been pigmented?’

Jocelyn looked closely. ‘I didn’t know they were. People keep asking if I’ve been on holiday.’

Jocelyn was acutely unwell, but the cause was physical.

‘We need to get you to hospital.’

She helped her mother to her feet. And collected the bag of documents.