‘The first time I ever had to do it I was telling a husband his wife had drowned at the beach. She’d been caught in a rip. He didn’t believe me until I took him to the morgue so he could identify her. Kept saying it couldn’t be her because she swam there every day and knew the sea. Knew the area. Strange, isn’t it? They always know why you’re there but sometimes the mind won’t let them accept what the heart knows.’
They both fell into silence, thinking about the other times they’d had to tell family their loved ones had died.
Eventually Spencer broke the silence. ‘You know what’s worse?’
‘I don’t think there is anything worse, is there?’
‘Not knowing. Seeing the grief the family have to live with when they don’t know. The son or daughter could be dead, but they might not be. If they’re not dead, why did they leave? If they’re dead, what happened to them and where is their body?’
‘I had a case like that once,’ Dave said, except it was the other way around: a body and no identification. ‘It’s one of those cases you can’t let go, know what I mean?’
‘Know exactly what you’re saying. What happened?’
Dave sighed and looked out of the window. There was a group of kids kicking the footy on the road, but they scattered as the police car drove past.
‘I worked a case where a body was found. A young boy’s body. He’d been assaulted and dumped in the state forest. By the time campers came across him, foxes had eaten parts of him. He was in a bad way.’ Dave took a breath. ‘Tried everything I knew to identify him. DNA, dental records, fingerprints. We tried TV, radio, had the forensic artist come in and draw a composite picture. Never got a nibble.
‘This kid didn’t have a record—well, no fingerprints that matched any crimes we had on file. He’d obviously been the victim of assaults throughout his life because the X-rays showed broken bones—arms, cracked skull, that type of thing. There were no missing persons reports that matched and I never managed to ID him. He’s buried without a name, without his family knowing.’
Silence filled the car.
‘You know what probably happened there, don’t you?’ Spencer asked.
Dave nodded. ‘I try not to think that he was a victim of his own family and one day something went wrong and they killed him. But it seems the only likely scenario, because what parent wouldn’t report their child missing?’
‘Exactly.’
Spencer drove without speaking until he turned into the hotel car park and pulled up. He turned to face Dave. ‘There’s a story just like that pinned onto the board in the kitchen to remind us what we’re here for.’
‘Haven’t seen it.’
‘It’s a bit of legend around here. A man came in to report the death of a woman. He thought it was a suicide because she was hanging from a tree, and he was desperate to let her family know where she was buried. Trouble was, this was back in the forties. No forensics back then. The police didn’t want to disturb the grave without reason and there was no ID, just a spot where there was a lonely grave, buried by someone she didn’t know.’ He sighed again, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. ‘Back then, her family weren’t found and even now her body is still in that grave. We don’t know who she is, don’t expect anyone knows who she is this far along, and because she’s never been identified, her family has never been informed. Check it out sometime.’ He took the keys from the ignition. ‘It’s important to remember these are real people and the families left behind are always going to be searching for answers…So we should too.’
Silence filled the car.
‘You know, this Ross Pollard could be a suspect,’ Dave said eventually, changing the subject.
‘Yeah?’
‘What if Glen changed his mind about selling the land?’
‘Morning, Mr Pollard,’ Spencer said, striding into Jaffa’s dining room and pulling up a chair at the table. Dave followed but didn’t take a seat, standing next to the table instead.
For a moment the man looked confused, but then recognition filtered across his face.
‘Have you found Glen Bartlett?’ he asked hopefully.
‘We have indeed,’ Spencer said.
‘Fan-bloody-tastic, I’ll get my papers signed then.’ Ross Pollard put his napkin on the table and pushed back his chair. ‘Where can I find him?’
‘I think you’ll have a few problems doing that. Unfortunately, he’s deceased.’
‘What?…Oh my God! Dead?’
‘Yes.’
Ross seemed at a loss as to what to say. Then realisation dawned and he asked, ‘Is he the man down the mine shaft? I heard a few people talking about it at the pub last night. I never put two and two together.’
Dave would have said the look of shock on his face was genuine, but he’d also learned people were good actors. He stood back and kept watching.
‘Yes, that’s him. Can you tell us when you saw him last?’ asked Spencer.
‘I haven’t seen him. Only spoken to him on the phone. I had organised to meet him at the Federal Hotel, first off, to get him to look over the paperwork. I thought he’d sign straightaway; he seemed eager to sell.
‘Instead he asked me about the settlement date when I talked to him on the phone. I told him it was twenty-one days from signing. He wasn’t happy. He wanted it earlier, so I had to go back to the finance department and make sure that was okay, then they had to redraw the papers. After that was done I organised to meet him at Fractured Hill to sign the paperwork. He said he was going to be out there
