“Yeah, and the four with the best motive were in prison that day. The only better alibi would have been having breakfast with the police commissioner. Sure, anyone else in the family could have been at Giverny’s house, but we don’t even have enough for a search warrant. The most we’ve got is vandalism for the paint job and maybe trespass. But none of the neighbors saw a thing, and neither did Giverny’s father.”
Anya could barely believe what she was hearing. Giverny hadn’t just been raped, she had been tormented for the duration of the trial, and on the morning of the retrial had received a death threat. In blood red.
“What about the threat?” Anya raised her voice.
A technician scurried past and the pair waited until he was out of sight.
Kate folded her arms. “Look. Unless we can prove she was murdered, that’s just a case of graffiti. I’m sorry, I know exactly how you feel.”
Anya doubted that. She felt ill in her stomach. What she felt was the erosive, gnawing ache of guilt and incompetence.
By trying-unsuccessfully-to resuscitate Giverny, she had effectively destroyed the crime scene. Her actions meant that the Harbourns wouldn’t just get away with gang rape, they’d probably get away with her murder too.
In bed that night, Anya’s mind fought sleep and she tossed about restlessly. As a distraction from her racing thoughts, she opted for some relaxation music on her iPod. But tonight, Mozart’s flute and harp concerto may as well have been screeching tires for all the good it did.
She sat up, switched to a podcast of a lecture on cranial nerves. The lecturer’s voice grated more than the topic.
Seeing the drum kit in the alcove of the room made her realize how much she had missed music on her trip.
She pulled on her cotton dressing-gown and headed for the stool, picking up a pair of drumsticks. She switched the iPod to a salsa rhythm, counted in and began playing along.
With the hi-hat locked to minimize noise, she gently accented the beat using her left foot. For some reason, coordinating her left hand with the snare drum and cymbals was a struggle. Even with the sound-dampening skin covers, it sounded like a cacophony.
She checked the grip. Palm facing up, stick between the middle and ring finger. Maybe it felt awkward because she was out of practice. Switching the music to “Rock and Roll High School” by the Ramones, she counted one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
By the fifth line she was out of time. She tried again and tightened the grip on both hands. The rhythm kept repeating through her arms and her body was beginning to perspire.
For once she didn’t care if the neighbor next door complained. The woman feigned deafness whenever Anya spoke to her, so the favor was about to be returned.
She unlocked the hi-hat, then began an improvised solo, accentuating every second beat with a hit to the snare or cymbal. At first softly, then louder as sweat moistened the hair on the back of her neck, and her fingers.
Crash, bang, roll, crash. Anger released with every downward movement.
The right foot pounded on the kick drum pedal as her arms raised higher between beats, accelerating the rate and increasing volume to culminate in a prolonged drum roll, finishing with frenzied assaults on the snare, base drum and crash cymbal.
The sound left her ears ringing.
When the pounding of her heart slowed, she slid off the stool onto the floor, puffing from shortness of breath.
Damn it! Why couldn’t she remember what Giverny had looked like when she found her? She’d pictured the girl’s face so many times, she was more confused than ever.
Both hands were in a tremor when she finally relaxed her grip on the drumsticks.
9
At 8 A.M. Anya cleared security and met Hayden Richards in the foyer of the department of public prosecutions.
“How’s the cough?” he asked.
“Nearly gone.” The chest infection had improved quickly. Maybe Indian food was more therapeutic than she had thought. If she looked tired, it was for another reason.
“Do you know what Natasha wants to meet about?” She turned the focus back to work.
Hayden shrugged. “We’re about to find out.”
The prosecutor exited a lift and headed straight for them. “I’ll take you upstairs,” she said, barely looking at Anya. Judging by the crinkled shirt and pencil skirt, she had already been at her desk a while.
On the twenty-seventh floor she led them through a maze of desks with files piled high, stacks spreading onto the floor. The lawyers who chose to work here obviously had a massive workload. Compared to their defense and private practice colleagues, they were grossly underpaid. Phones rang unanswered as staff hurried to deliver files or took notes on their own calls.
They arrived at Natasha’s office; surprisingly the desk was clear, despite every bench and shelf being filled with folders tied with ribbon. The only human touches were an apple and knife on a plate and a photo of a group of smiling bushwalkers on the windowsill.
“Take a seat.”
The visitors did as directed. Natasha seemed in no mood for polite conversation.
“I’ve seen the Hart PM report. Death by asphyxiation, due to a ligature. Nothing about homicide, signs of a struggle or interference by a third party. In other words, we’ve got
Hayden glanced at Anya. “Well, as far as I could tell, there were no defense injuries or bruising that might suggest she fought anyone.”
“What about the finger underneath the cord? Doesn’t that tell us she tried to get the noose off?”
Anya sat straighter in the seat. “It’s possible she could have tried to hang herself, then changed her mind. It does happen.”
“Is that what you think?”
“No,” Anya snapped. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. If you’re asking me to stand up in court and deny the possibility, then I can’t.”
The lawyer sat glaring at Anya and drummed her fingers on the desk. “All right then, can you exclude the possibility that she was murdered and the killer staged the scene to look like a suicide?”
“I can’t exclude that possibility.” Anya chose her words as carefully as she would on the stand in court.
Hayden cleared his throat. “We have motive but not opportunity. We’ve gone through the calls the Harbourns made from prison, but they’re all to family. As to the whereabouts of the other siblings, they all say the whole family was together all night and all morning. So far nothing we’ve found can break that alibi. We don’t even know when the car and garage were painted.”
Natasha stopped drumming. “If it’s a two-car garage, why didn’t the father see it when he drove off to pick up his ex-wife?”
“The garage door is clunky and he wanted Giverny to sleep as late as possible, so he left his car out in the street the night before,” Hayden explained.
“Did forensics go over the garage? What about fingerprints, footprints, anything?”
“There weren’t any prints left behind on the Morris Minor, or anywhere in the garage. Whoever did it must have used gloves. If any of the Harbourns was there, they didn’t leave us much.”
“I want you to check speed cameras in the area, see if anyone was caught near the Hart house the night before or that morning. Check en route to the Harbourns’ place as well. And petrol stations. Go over video loops in case one of them filled up a vehicle. The brothers in custody had a lot to lose if they were convicted of gang rape. With the new laws, they were each facing a possible life sentence for the abduction and gang rape.”
