The Delta Chain (5 page)

‘It’s an option. If so, I’d suspect the
victim drowned in something other than saltwater. The concentration
of chloride in the bloodstream would be a lot lower. But as
putrefaction of the corpse has begun, I can’t determine that.’

‘The chemistry of the blood changes.’ Adam
released a sigh of frustration.

‘I ran an FBC anyhow. Curiosity’s sake. The
chloride level
had
increased, the sure sign of a saltwater
drowning. However, the chemistry of the blood changes once a body
has been submerged ...’

‘We can’t draw definite conclusions from the
blood?’

‘Frustrating, but no…’

Adam returned a pained but accepting
expression. ‘You mentioned needle marks. Drug use?’

‘Or a medical condition requiring blood
transfusions. There’s no evidence of either from the organs, nor
from the blood, but of course the blood work can’t be relied
on.’

‘Okay, so for leads on her ID we have
possible blood transfusions or drug dependence, along with
fingerprints and dental matches.’

‘There’s nothing at all likely on the Missing
lists?’ Markham pressed.

‘Not locally. We’ll have checked the national
database by later this morning.’

Markham shook his head with the sad
observation of the professional. ‘Girl’s no more than sixteen or
seventeen. Someone should’ve known she was missing almost straight
away.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There’s something else.’

‘From the autopsy?’

‘No. A case much further north. Four months
ago. A young woman washed ashore, naked, and still unidentified. I
thought of it the moment I saw this body last night, but I didn’t
think the details were going to start stacking up the same.’

Now that Markham mentioned it, Adam
remembered the case. The corpse was referred to in police circles
as “the mermaid.” It explained Markham’s earlier unease. Adam was
aware that, according to the Queensland Bureau of Crime Statistics,
there were just three long-term unidentified bodies at the State
morgue, all either homicides or suspected homicides. “The mermaid”
was one of them.

‘The Chief Coroner’s Office in Brisbane is
handling that one,’ Markham continued. ‘The one big difference with
“the mermaid” is that she’d been in the water a great deal longer.
Fourteen to sixteen days, so deterioration created difficulty in
establishing her appearance. Special procedures for the
fingerprinting didn’t help.’

‘Something more about this bothered you,’
Adam guessed.

‘I’m coming to that. I remembered something
about the hands, so I accessed the report.’

‘Fists?’

‘Yes. But the deterioration meant there was
no further detail available.’

‘So we don’t know about bruising or the state
of the veins.’

‘No.’

‘Or whether there’d been medical trauma to
have caused abnormal posturing.’

‘No.’

‘What’s the current status?’

‘Facial reconstruction. The coroner brought
in a university anatomist who specialises in recreating heads from
skeletal remains. They’ll transmit the image internationally.
Intuition tells me there’s too many similarities here, Adam.’

‘Can’t disagree.’

‘And Kirby’s back from vacation today, isn’t
he?’

‘Yes.’

Senior Sergeant Arthur Kirby was the Northern
Rocks station chief.

‘And he and the mayor are buddies. Don’t be
surprised if you and Kirby get a call from our illustrious
political leader before the day’s out. Bingham won’t be happy to
have a drowning linked to a long term missing persons case, not
with both his re-election and the town’s fiftieth birthday hot on
his heels.’

Markham turned back to the body on the slab.
With rigor mortis having passed it wasn’t a problem for him to
unfurl the fingers out from the clenched fist position. ‘You can
give a hand with the fingerprinting.’

‘Give me too much to do and I’ll need my own
desk and phone in here.’

‘Not in the budget, I’m afraid. You can don
some scrubs and bring over one of the pads, while I prep the
fingers.’ As Adam moved to the storage units along the far wall,
Markham used a hypodermic syringe to inject glycerine into the
balls of the fingers. That would smooth out the unnatural wrinkles
caused by immersion in the ocean.

Adam held the pad in place as Markham took
each of the fingers and rolled them across the ink. Markham said:
‘Now, about the teeth. It’ll take a while to get an accurate cast
of the dentition but in the meantime you can take the fingerprint
forms and get things happening on that front.’

‘Good.’ Adam still hoped for an early ID and
a ruling of accidental drowning. But his hopes for that were fading
by the minute.

Markham paused a moment, resting his gaze on
Adam. ‘I didn’t realise before how bleary eyed you’re looking.’

‘Yeah, well…not here for a photo shoot.’

‘In these days of the Britney brigade, bleary
eyes are a “must” for celeb shots, aren’t they?’

‘Except I’m not a celebrity.’

‘You are to those boys on the basketball
teams,’ Markham offered. ‘We’re all a celebrity to someone.’

‘Who’s your someone?’

‘My wife…well, here’s hoping.’

Adam stifled a grin. ‘Point taken.’

‘You didn’t get much sleep?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘If this girl’s death has brought back
painful memories for me, Adam, and it has, then I can only imagine
how much more difficult it must be for you.’

‘I’m okay, Brian.’ Seventeen years before,
when Adam’s sister drowned, Brian Markham hadn’t been the police
medical examiner for the region. He’d been the senior constable
who’d organised and led the search for the missing seven-year-old
Alana Bennett. When the search was called off it was Markham, a
good friend of Adam’s late father George, who’d come to the house
with the tragic news.

Adam would never forget the evening when
Markham sat with him on the back porch of the old house, telling
him how it took a special kind of strength to deal with the loss of
a loved one; how Adam would need to be brave and strong, like a
policeman, and help his parents as much as possible. Markham had
stayed in touch with Adam ever since – later, coaching him at the
basketball stadium – and he’d become something of a role model to
the young, impressionable boy.

Markham was a country boy himself, raised on
a farm with little chance for advanced education. He’d joined the
police force at age eighteen. His main interest, however, had
always been forensic pathology. As a young policeman he’d gone to
university part-time to obtain a medical degree, later transferring
to the regional coroner’s office.

‘Nevertheless,’ Markham replied, ‘if this
girl isn’t identified quickly, if it is going to drag on like the
“mermaid” case, then take some advice: you don’t have to personally
handle every local investigation. Request that it be handled by
Johnson over at Castlemaine.’

‘It was a long time ago, Brian. I admit it’s
brought back memories. But I’m fine. If anything, I’m determined to
find out who this girl was and how and why she drowned.

Adam was no sooner back in his office when
his phone rang.

‘It’s Barbara Cail, Detective. I’m so sorry
to disturb you this early…’

‘It’s okay, Barbara. What’s up?’

She told him about the state in which she’d
found Costas the night before; how she hadn’t been able to raise
her local doctor and how Costas had refused to go the hospital. ‘I
think he’s suffering shock. He threw up again this morning. I
thought that maybe you’d seen this sort of thing before. Could you
suggest something?’

‘I need to interview Costas today about last
night’s events,’ Adam said. ‘That will give me a chance to suggest
some help. Will he be at the house this morning?’

‘Silly man says he’s going into his
shop.’

‘Tell him I phoned and asked if he could wait
for me at your place. And don’t worry, Barbara. He’ll be fine. I’ll
try and persuade him to see a counsellor who can help him through
this.’

‘That would be terrific, Detective…oh, hold
on.’ She was away from the phone for just a moment. ‘It’s Joey,
wants to say a quick hello.’ She sounded flustered.

‘That’s fine, Barbara. Put him on.’

There was a rustling sound as the phone was
exchanged at the other end. ‘Hi, Adam.’

‘Hi, Joey.’

‘Guess you’re really busy now, with that dead
body and all.’

Adam could detect the hint of awe in the
boy’s inflection.

‘Pretty busy, Joey. Are you being as much
help as you can to your Mum right now?’

‘Oh yeah. Sure am.’

‘Good man.’

‘Well, I just wanted to touch base. You be at
practice Thursday night, Adam?’

‘Sure will. I’ll see you then.’

‘Okay. ‘Bye.’

Adam smiled to himself as he hung up the
phone. He remembered how, at a similar age, he’d worshipped Brian
Markham for a while. He wondered whether he’d been as obvious as
Joey was being with him. But his thoughts turned quickly to
Barbara’s boyfriend, a warm, friendly, shaggy bear of a man who
sometimes accompanied Barbara to watch Joey’s basketball game. He
felt concern for Costas, and cursed himself for not anticipating
that the man might suffer a reaction to the shock.

Walter had heard them, somewhere close under
the cloak of night. He had hidden, remaining deathly still and
holding his breath for long periods at a time, listening to the
sounds of the hunters as they passed nearby. He could tell from the
rhythm of the movement that there were several men, and that
something was being dragged.

He waited until they were well clear and
then, with the stealth of a wraith he returned to the campsite near
the Adelaide River. No sign of Greg. No rifle left behind. No signs
of a struggle. But there was a trail of broken twigs and footfalls
in the grasses.

The sun was on the crest of the horizon,
bringing colour to the landscape. The jabbering noises of the birds
carried on the warm breeze. Walter felt a pang of fear for his
friend and began following the path taken by the hunters. He heard
the squeals of a pack of wild pigs somewhere along the nearby
riverbank and then, a little later on, the cry of his own name.

Greg Kovacs was screaming out for him.

There was a fork in the riverbank where it
turned to follow the side stream. It was from this point that
Walter first caught sight of Greg, much further along the bank by
the fast running water.

It was a sight branded forever into the dark
places of his mind.

The crocodile, an enormous seven footer, had
clamped its jaws down around the ranger’s right leg. In order to
break its prey free from the restraining ropes, the creature began
to jack knife its body in a series of rolls. High pitched shrieks
of terror filled the air, then suddenly stopped, as the reptile
tore the torso of its victim from the restrained limbs.

Walter raced forward, his rifle firing at the
creature despite the obvious fact it was far too late.

Blood thickened the water, bubbling furiously
with the current. The creature, the remains of its prey held firmly
between clenched jaws, glided back into the main sweep of the
river. Then dived.

It had happened so quickly. Walter lowered
his rifle and stood on the bank, a forlorn figure, watching the
swirling river as the red stain quickly dispersed. From somewhere
deep inside the voice of survival prodded him out of his shock: the
hunters would still be searching for him and their monstrous
intention was clear.

He ran into the cover of the surrounding
swamplands. It would be too dangerous to return to the camp.
Instead he would travel without rest back along the river to the
point, clear of the swamps, where he and Greg had left the
four-wheel drive. It was close to two days away on foot but he
planned to reach it sooner, without stopping, without sleeping.

At some stage during the hours that followed,
as he moved silently through the brush, he realised that the torn
limbs of his friend still hung from those ropes, and that by then
the scavengers of the Outback would be feeding on them. He
continued to run as night fell but he didn’t hear the sounds of the
wilderness or the cacophony of the birds. His ears still rang with
Greg Kovacs’ screams and Walter was sure that he would continue to
hear them, constantly and endlessly, for the rest of his life.

Kate Kovacs loved the twenty-minute drive
along the coast road to the Westmeyer Research Institute. She
wouldn’t have minded if the drive were longer. Since her arrival in
Northern Rocks she’d enjoyed travelling to and from work, all
because of that marvellous road. There was nothing quite like the
broad, blue strip of the Pacific on one side, the lush, green hills
and forest on the other. And the pelicans, the glorious
pelicans.

Flashback: sitting with office manager Betty
at A.B.C.S. HQ, Betty having accessed local data on Northern Rocks,
telling Kate: ‘This is the kind of assignment you IT nomads dream
of. Picturesque, old style township with lots of outdoor cafes, and
a beachside promenade. A long history of fishing and farming. Two
decades ago a hotel chain opened a resort there, tourism boomed,
lots of money moved in. Noted for its pelicans, they love the rocky
islets there, it’s a major nesting place.’

Kate didn’t know a great deal about William
Westmeyer, but he certainly knew how to choose his locations. He
couldn’t have chosen a more peaceful spot when he’d arrived here,
eighteen months earlier to establish his scientific research
facility. The compound was nestled in a small valley, surrounded by
a healthy grove of trees and backed onto an expanse of natural
forest. It was walking distance from the ocean foreshore.