The Grotesques (18 page)

She got into the car, unable to hide her impatience as she dug around in the bag she had picked up on the way out. “Chocolate?” she offered Danes, forcing light-heartedness because she knew it would ruffle him. He banged the door.

“This is serious, Ella,” Rob said from the front passenger seat.

“Chocolate always is,” she replied as Danes pulled onto the road. She was rewarded with a tightening of his knuckles on the steering wheel.

THE SINGLE BARE
bulb kept the interview room dim. Devoid of furniture other than a table and two chairs, it seemed bleak enough to inhibit confessions rather than encourage them. That went for the surly Danes too, when he deigned to enter. Ella rolled her eyes when he remained standing across the table. As if his height would intimidate after what she’d seen.

“Where’s Rob?”

“Detective Hamlyn is busy. Checking out whether there is any new evidence in your boyfriend’s disappearance.”

She let the comment pass. Getting worked up was liable to muddle her thinking. She needed a cool mind to come away from this interview with more information than she entered with, hopefully while giving little away to a detective intent on conducting a witch-hunt and too pragmatic to listen to stories of camera-snatching monsters and dragon-head holograms. “Do you want to tell me why I’m here?”

“I want you to explain where you got traces of Caroline Jones’ and Cecily Williams’ blood.”

Ella gawped and blinked. “What did you say?” She wondered if Danes was playing some perverted game, hoping his suspect would confess to the crime if he purported to possess incriminating evidence.

“You heard me.” Danes planted his knuckles on the table and shifted his weight over his arms. His aggressive stance left Ella in no doubt that this interview was official. “How did you get the blood of two girls who have been missing for over a week on your belongings?”

Ella’s mind was racing, but she refused to be bullied. “The blood on the tissue, I found near the church. I rang Ro . . . Detective Hamlyn when I found it. I also reported a scream at the time.”

“And Cecily Williams’ blood?”

Critical piece of information number two. The blood on the church roof had been from Caroline Jones. As for Cecily Williams’ blood, Ella hesitated. Nothing she could say would make sense.
Yes, Detective, I stabbed at what should have been an impossible monster, which was attacking me, by the way, and very probably responsible for the fire in my house, and then wiped its blood from my arm
. What on earth was she going to say to Adam?

Danes pounced. “What are you hiding, Ms Jerome? It’s making you look as guilty as hell. This evidence is enough to prosecute.”

Ella had to concede that from where he was standing, she probably was the best suspect around. However, she had no intention of being charged. “It’s circumstantial. I turned both samples over to the police and made a report. And someone wanted me dead over those blood specimens.”

Danes pulled out a chair and sat. “You only obtained the second specimen
after
the arson attack.”

“No, during it. Look, I don’t know what’s going on here any more than you do.”

“Start telling the truth.”

“Which part of what I’ve said don’t you believe?”

“The part where you omitted to mention exactly how you came to collect the blood.”

Ella was beginning to wonder whether she needed a lawyer. “It’s exactly as I told you at the hospital. I stabbed someone when I went through the glass door to escape a fire. I wiped the blood from my arm and turned it over to the police. That blood was fresh. The girls could still be alive.” Years of crime reporting told her what an improbability that was, and yet there was nothing even remotely plausible about this whole situation. “You have to keep looking for them.”

“That’s exactly what we are doing.” He rested his elbows on the table, clasped his hands in front his mouth, and regarded her. “Do you want to tell me whose DNA we will find on the piece of stone you claim came from the bust of the missing girl?”

She felt a chill ripple down her body. “You mean that
was
flesh embedded in the statue?” Saying she felt squeamish to think the mason could have moulded stone around a severed head was a gross understatement.

“You had forensic evidence tied to two victims in your possession, Ms Jerome, and now possibly a third.”

She stared at him. “Mr Travellian can confirm where the stone came from. There were at least a dozen witnesses.” And the lab would note the section fitted the neck perfectly. Joanne’s neck. Which she may have cut, Heaven help them all, because the pathologist had stated flesh on the murdered girls had turned to stone.

She tried to swallow down the hot, bitter reflux in her throat. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“You, Ms Jerome? The Travellians had to be taken to hospital under sedation when the forensics unit confiscated that bust.”

She hoped they would recover. She had a feeling their daughter’s status was about to switch from
missing
to
murdered
. “You can’t seriously think I’m involved in this?”

He stood. “I’m glad to see you don’t sport any smiles now. Make no mistake about the seriousness of your predicament.”

Ella leant back and crossed her arms. “I want to speak to Rob. Right now.”

THE POLICE SWARMED
through the church. Ella flashed Genord a smug smile and wandered through the foyer. For once she was wearing her
Informer
press tag if not with pride then with a certain satisfaction. If the uniforms cast her critical glances, what did she care? She was covering the scene as events unfolded.

“Let’s make a deal,” she had said when Danes finally fetched Rob to the interview room. “If you search the Church of the Resurrection as a result of the information I give you, I get to tag along.”

As it turned out, sticking to her testimony about collecting blood from the roof proved most persuasive. When Danes began to back down from his accusations, she connected Matt Hayes to the church through the dragon scales. And for a final sweetener, she revealed the presence of an unconfirmed underwater passage, source to remain nameless, of course. A grudging Rob conceded there was enough new information to search the church. Again. He was, at this moment, coordinating efforts in the nave. One hand combed through his grey-flecked hair at frequent intervals. With his forehead crinkled in frustration, she guessed he was currently regretting his choice of profession. She could not blame him. Adelaide, often mistakenly tagged a large country town, was in the midst of a very big city crime crisis.

“You’ve got to make the mason’s workshop a priority,” she said. Rob gave her a pointed look which said he did not need a reporter, an
Informer
reporter at that, to tell him how to do his job. Ella managed an apologetic smile and backed toward the transepts.

Romain-with-no-last-name howled when taken from his current carving, as yet an indistinct hunk of granite. Rob ordered every inch of his workshop scoured. On a whim, Ella dialled Matt’s mobile. Somewhere in the bedroom, a phone began to ring. Rob answered.

“That’s Matt Hayes’s phone,” she said. Rob walked into the circular room where she was waiting. He pressed the off button and waited. “I had a hunch,” she said.

“Bats up,” was all Romain had to say when Rob showed him the phone.

The rest of the search proved futile. Forensics could not find even a trace of blood on the ledge.

“We have as much evidence against Ella Jerome as we do against Genord,” she heard Danes tell Rob before her ex stormed down the bell tower stairs.

She wanted to protest as she jogged out of the church after him, then right back in again when Genord claimed the only key to the crypt was in the possession of the contractor. She had never seen Rob in such a black mood. He had not even asked Genord for the keys a second time. Walking away from warnings that the area, still under construction, was unsafe, he formed two tight fists and ordered the padlock cut in a voice that forestalled any comment. From anyone.

Behind the arched, iron door, steep steps led down into gloom. Rob took the stairs slowly, shining his torch left, right, up, and down. Ella followed close, still not daring to speak. The confined passage and musty air spooked her. Then there were the wooden torches in metal sconces which lined the rough walls. Rob shook his head.

“Are we in Australia or medieval Europe?”

“Bit of culture doesn’t hurt,” Danes answered from behind.

Rob snorted. “Pretension more like.”

The grey blocks gave way to white stone in the crypt. In front of them, marble tombs formed two rows down the length of a rectangular room that eventually opened into a larger area. Ella had never been good with spatial calculations, but by her estimates they were under the presbytery.

Danes waved the torch around. “No electricity.”

“Should make it interesting.” Rob shone his beam forward.

“Tombs in a new church. Genord preparing for his demise?”

Rob had a peculiar look on his face. “Didn’t the local CIB report the crypt bare after Cecily Williams’ disappearance?”

“Yes, so how . . . ?” the younger man said.

Ella went mute, unwilling to call attention to herself in case they asked her to leave. Whatever the Criminal Investigation Branch may have found, she was nursing a growing suspicion that the tombs were connected to the case, and this case was her ticket out of the
Informer
.

“Let’s take a look,” Rob said, but it was a moment longer before he moved.

Their torches threw the uneven surfaces of the marble slabs into light and shadow. Rob’s beam hit a pair of stone feet. A surge of adrenalin turned Ella cold.

“Why are empty tombs carved?” she asked.
Stupid
, she told herself. Her high-pitched voice was as attention-seeking as it got.

Her good fortune that Rob was more interested in illuminating the lid. “My—” He broke off. “Shit.”

His partner echoed him a moment later.

The swearing heightened her dread. She slunk forward. And could only stare. Countless hours of poring over press reports since she started investigating the disappearances had seared the images of the six missing women into her mind. There was no doubt this carving, with its elfin face and wispy hair, was an effigy of Cecily Williams. Ella swung to the right and swallowed. An equally fine likeness of Caroline Jones lay across the second tomb, her athletic body obvious even beneath the flowing robes the two stone victims wore.

She edged past Danes, who seemed to have sprung roots, and inched after Rob. Between the next pair of tombs, he exhaled long and hard. Effigies of Bekka Todd and Joanne Travellian lay on the covers. Beyond them Alicia Moffat was paired with Melanie Denham, twenty-two years old, murdered before her life had really begun. Fighting tears, Ella gathered the courage to look at the last tomb out of respect for the victim. Matt Hayes, none too bright, and inconsiderate, but harmless.

“Get some men down here,” Rob called. Beads of sweat were moistening his brow.

He would know better than her how much those tombs smacked of a trophy.

“They’re related, aren’t they,” Ella said, swallowing, “the missing persons and homicide cases.” She pushed her palms against a stone slab, desperate to release the terrorised girl within.

“Probably,” Rob said, adding his weight to hers, “but it’s not the official line.”

It meant hope for Adam, though, that there wasn’t a tomb for him. She stopped pushing and took a deep breath. Several concerted efforts later, six men had failed to budge the cover.

“It’s no use. We’re going to need some equipment,” Rob said.

It took two hours for appropriate rigging to be set up. Rob mentioned the time would be best spent interviewing Genord. Until she was explicitly told otherwise, Ella intended to eavesdrop.

“I’m afraid you won’t find what you’re looking for.” The caretaker was seated on a bench across the road, his back straight, one leg a little forward. He surveyed the comings and goings, a wry smile on his face, as though the police workings were a show provided solely for his entertainment. Ella found she couldn’t look at him, and for once she was content to listen.

“What are we looking for?” Rob’s attempts to lead Genord into a slip had amounted to nothing. His finger had twitched several times as he let the questions fly.

“The tombs are empty, detective.”

“What did you do with the bodies?”

“You don’t really believe I had anything to do with those unfortunate girls’ disappearances?” The false indignation set Rob’s finger to tapping. Everything about the caretaker antagonised, from his haughty air to the immaculate press of his silk suit. She was certain Genord was having precisely the effect he desired.

“Why are there tombs for Cecily Williams, Caroline Jones, Bekka Todd, Joanne Travellian, Alicia Moffat, Melanie Denham, and Matt Hayes in your church?” Rob rattled off the names without pause.

“Do you not think it a fitting memorial? Their lives may have been cut short, detective, but their images have been immortalised.”