Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

night, the outskirts of Kallayee remaining the defacto base for the press coverage. Still the town was roped off, a few trespassers forcibly removed and given a night in the cells. She considered going to Hurton and the Rack. She might not have been exactly welcomed but there was a chance of bumping into Matty and coming back here. Which wouldn’t contravene the security of the scene. Nothing untoward had taken place in this caravan. It just smelled like it.

The temporary booster also meant phone coverage. Rispoli and the others had left twenty minutes ago. They would barely have made it to the main road. She could call Rispoli and get him to return. He was a police officer. That certainly wouldn’t contravene security.

So she did. He didn’t take much persuading.

Hearing the vehicle approach, she waited in the doorway of the caravan, striking what she hoped was a seductive pose, truly feeling like a black-and-white movie actress now, beckoning her strapping co-star into her on-set trailer. The movie was murder.

What happened between them wasn’t acting.

The morning brought a search for clean clothes in the fetid air of the tiny caravan, then a trip to Hurton for breakfast, and reviewing a burst of new forensic information that was as exhilarating as the double espresso.

The lab had been working overnight. Fingerprints and DNA had been identified from the empty beer cans found at the crash site. Lorcan Maguire’s. Putting him in the vicinity of two murders. Or at least the disposal of the bodies.

‘So Lorcan killed them before he himself was killed?’ said Rispoli, finishing off his breakfast. Not letting the morass of information affect his gut.

Emmaline was still trying to process the information. She had been expecting Ian Kinch’s DNA on the tins. Even Mike Andrews or Stevie Amaranga. Nikos Iannis at a stretch.

She recalibrated the timeline. ‘If it was Lorcan it means that he killed JDD and JDP, transported the bodies, prepped the truck and burnt it to destroy evidence.’

‘Which is what you would expect from a career criminal. Like Ian Kinch.’

‘Or Nikos Iannis. Or someone who could outsource it.’

‘To professionals.’

‘Yeah. But an amateur would make mistakes. Like leave his DNA near the site,’ said Emmaline.

‘Maybe he needed to have a few to calm his nerves. Before or after.’

‘But someone helped him do this. He couldn’t have done it alone.’

‘The same person that then killed him and took his son?’

‘It would seem to link.’

‘But why?’

‘I think something went badly wrong between the family and those miners. I also think that Nikos, and even Chester Grant, found out where the family were living,’ said Emmaline. ‘Plus the desert can do some crazy things to people.’

93

Naiyana

She stared across the seat at him as he veered off the road out of Kallayee, down the highway for a short spell before deviating again long before Hurton. He navigated a kilometre to a spot behind the hill, out of sight of anything but satellites and wild animals.

He looked serious and there was a smell of desperation in the dirty sweat that clung to his face. The relaxed cunning had gone. There was no playfulness in his voice, no overarching control. Lorcan was probably right in not volunteering to come. The coward.

‘Something needs to be done about him,’ said Ian, staring into the trees beyond.

‘I’ll try to keep him under control.’

‘Try harder. As things stand this is beneficial to both of us. It needs to be kept that way.’

Naiyana nodded. Two kids to keep in order. And a set of unruly neighbours.

94

Mike Andrews

The heat and the pressure had become too much. He needed to get away from this dark prison cell. But on stepping into the searing air there was only one thing on his mind. Find Lorcan. Warn him. Make him leave.

Seeming to sense this, Stevie had followed him.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, Mike.’

‘Like let them hang around here?’

‘Let Ian do his bit.’

‘By talking to her? We know she can’t control him.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m not grabbing that kid,’ warned Stevie.

‘Maybe it won’t come to that,’ said Mike, as he approached the family’s house. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. Something. Anything. Lorcan had become the focus of all his anger and frustration.

Unexpectedly the front door opened. Lorcan was standing in the doorway, the kid nowhere to be seen. He looked pained and drawn, worried. Mike was determined to make him very worried. Using words only. Despite this self-assertion, he could feel his hands balling into fists. As Ian had said, ‘Be prepared for anything.’

From the direction of the crossroads came the rattle of an engine. It pulled up outside the house, Ian and Naiyana exiting the vehicle.

‘What’s going on here?’ asked Ian.

Mike stared at him, then Lorcan, before turning and marching back towards the crossroads without another word. Lorcan had earned a reprieve for the time being.

95

Emmaline

She drove everyone out of Kallayee for the rest of the morning. All distractions kept outside the caravan. She needed solace to feed her thinking.

Who were the bodies in the truck? The only people she could rule out were Lorcan and Dylan Maguire. So if it was two of the other people in Kallayee – likely, given the location of the scene and the fact that none of them had been seen since 30 December – then it was likely one of two groups. Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga, as they were friends before Ian Kinch became the third wheel, or Naiyana Maguire and Ian Kinch. Mike and Stevie might have developed some anger towards Ian over the gold, shot him, then went about killing the family. Naiyana first, then a fleeing Lorcan. But that was unlikely. They were scientists, not killers. And what would they want with Dylan? But the desert can do some crazy things, as she herself had said. Here she was debating with herself in the middle of a tiny caravan, being serenaded by