Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

rustling of movement and breathing returned as if the person holding the phone was moving rapidly. Then the recording ended abruptly.

‘Nothing else?’ asked Emmaline.

‘No, they passed the recording through modulation to try and clean it up. This is the best we have. According to them the voice is almost certainly male and Australian. From Brisbane-Gold Coast direction they determine. A long way from home.’

‘There is also a subtle tick in his speech,’ noted Rispoli. ‘Like he’s chewing gum.’

‘The echoes indicate it was recorded in an enclosed space.’

‘The same tunnel the mining equipment was in?’

‘That might explain the darkness. Either that or the phone was kept in his pocket. Out of sight,’ said Emmaline.

‘What if they were trapped somewhere down a mine? Maybe Lorcan got out with his son and tried to escape. They had to leave Naiyana behind. Or she was already dead.’

‘Have they played it to Lorcan’s family?’

‘Yeah,’ said Oily. ‘No one recognized the voice.’

‘But we do know that the phone was out of signal range at the time of the recording,’ said Emmaline. ‘The question is whether someone had come out to visit the family. And if that visitor was welcome or not.’

‘Someone from INK Tech or Brightside?’

Or Chester Grant, thought Emmaline but kept him out of the equation as yet. She recognized the growing desperation within the caravan. They had found Lorcan’s body but the overall sense was that they were already too late. This was the overriding emotion of being a police officer in her experience – arriving too late to prevent bad things from happening. Only there to piece together the aftermath and create one final snapshot of a person’s life. But once a mirror was broken it couldn’t be put back the same way it had been. The cracks were always there.

‘Do we put the recording out nationally?’ asked Rispoli. ‘See if anyone recognizes it?’

‘Or keep it to ourselves for now in case these people killed Lorcan Maguire and took Naiyana and Dylan hostage,’ said Emmaline.

‘We haven’t received a ransom request though, have we? Which would be odd for a kidnapping.’

She couldn’t fault the logic. She was glad to have Rispoli on her team. Given the rapidly increasing workload she needed about twenty competent officers like him. But she was left with four. Plus Barker.

She noted, ‘Plus we have Naiyana’s blood in the house. And Dylan’s on his dad’s shirt.’

‘And more near the quad bike with the slashed tyres,’ said Anand.

‘Which, according to Forensics, doesn’t match Naiyana’s,’ said Oily. ‘Or Lorcan’s or Dylan’s.’

‘But it matches someone’s. Just nobody in the system.’

‘So do we go public with the recording?’ asked Rispoli, looking to Emmaline.

The risks remained. What if someone was holding Naiyana and Dylan? What if going public forced them to kill both? But minus a ransom demand and given Lorcan Maguire’s murder, the blood found in the house and the blood found in town, they needed a solid lead. Identifying this unknown voice on a dead man’s phone was a solid lead.

Emmaline took a deep breath, almost tasting the years of Papa Webster’s cigarettes on her tongue. ‘Send it out. We’ll hope for the best.’

Not a situation any investigator wanted to be in, she thought.

44

Lorcan

Naiyana cooked dinner on the camping stove. They could make the rest of the house a mansion but until there was a working cooker it would always look temporary. He had never appreciated before how the kitchen was the most essential part of a house. You could sleep on the floor, sit on beanbags, even shit in an outside dunny and manage, but minus a cooker it all felt transitory.

Eggs and beans. Breakfast for dinner. Naiyana said she was going into town tomorrow for more groceries. He knew that she hated this cooking, cleaning bullshit. So did he. They had employed a cleaner in Perth. Once a week for fifty bucks. Worth it to not have to worry about it. Affluent times.

She was on her third glass of wine, her hand not quivering yet but not far off. Normally he would say something about taking it easy with the booze but not tonight. Her falling asleep was part of the plan.

‘What was the school like?’ he asked, trying to instigate a non-fractious conversation.

‘Yeah, okay,’ she said, mumbling. ‘Nothing like Clementine. Old, dusty and decayed – but fine.’

‘Doesn’t sound good for Dylan.’

‘He’ll manage. He’ll make new friends and…’ The sentence drifted away. The wine was taking effect. Suddenly she was reanimated, a new topic broached. ‘Are you sure that no one knows we are here?’ she said, taking a large gulp.

‘I’m sure,’ said Lorcan. ‘Why?’

‘I just… wanted to know.’

‘What about you?’

‘No one,’ she said, followed by another gulp.

Lorcan narrowed his eyes, trying to drill into her skull. ‘Nee?’

‘I was just wondering.’

‘You didn’t reveal anything to your friend? Or in one of your vlogs?’

‘No.’

‘Did someone reply to them?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe you should be more worried about who might already be with us.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked, with an overexaggerated frown.

‘Nothing,’ said Lorcan.

‘You want to go back to that tunnel, don’t you?’ she said, the glass finding wine-stained lips that had turned a glorious red.

He said nothing. Which said plenty.

‘Don’t leave us here.’

‘I’ll just take a look.’

The rest of the dinner passed in silence. As did the half-hour before she passed out on the sun lounger in the living room. Lorcan put a sleepy Dylan to bed and left. He would be back before she awoke.

45

Lorcan

He took up his previous spot in the tin shack opposite the tunnel house. The air was a little colder than previous nights but his nerves kept him warm, hands pressed to his legs to stop them from jerking up and down.

Just before midnight he heard it. The rumble of an engine, coasting slowly into town. A minute later, the moonlit shadow of a dark coloured ute came into view, its headlights off. A stealthy approach. Experienced. It backed up to the door of the wooden structure and three