Tallowwood Read online

  There was a beat more of silence. “Well, I can assure you, there was. Not just the vials but photographic evidence, fingerprint evidence, full transcripts. It went to court, and . . . ,” his voice trailed off. “You said murders?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re saying those vials are now missing?”

  “Yes, sir. And have been for some time. The evidence storage was moved from Potts Hill to the current location about fifteen years ago, so perhaps they were misplaced then,” August said, but his tone and the look on his face told Jacob he didn’t believe they were misplaced at all. “Could they have been destroyed?”

  “Not without a week’s worth of paperwork,” McCulloch replied.

  “Yeah, so I’ve been told. I’m just trying to think of scenarios that don’t make it look like we’ve had evidence stolen or misappropriated, sir. And this is a class nine substance—”

  “Let me look into it. I’ll see what I can find out,” McCulloch said. “Give me your number, son.”

  August rattled off his phone number, and the call was cut off. Both Jake and August took a second to breathe.

  “Fuck,” August whispered. “Well, the ball’s in motion now.”

  “It might be good for him to do the asking,” Jake offered, though he wasn’t sure if he believed that. “At the end of the day, those vials are missing. They either find them, find out what happened to them, or they find the person who took them. And that’s a good thing, right?”

  August nodded. “Yeah.”

  It certainly didn’t feel like a good thing. Jake knew they’d done nothing wrong—apart from asking about a case they didn’t strictly have permission to ask about, even though they’d not requested anything formally—but he still felt as though he was setting his own house on fire. He tried to shake that feeling off and let out a sigh. “Why are we stopped here?”

  “Oh,” August said. Then he nodded to an apartment block up the road. “That’s where I live.”

  August pulled the car back onto the road and drove into the underground parking lot. He swiped his security fob and the gate rolled back. It was after five, and the sky was already getting dark, but Jake was a little surprised that where he was spending the night hadn’t come up in conversation and August was just assuming he was staying with him. “I uh, I could grab a hotel . . .”

  “Oh.” August hit the brakes and tyres squealed on the concrete. He looked a mix of horrified and mortified. “I mean, sure. If you want. But I . . . I mean, we have some work to do and I just figured we could use my place. It’s not that great, but there’s a spare room. No one’s ever slept in there, and I just use it for the treadmill, so you’re more than welcome to stay and we could order in some dinner, but if that’s weird and you’d—”

  God, he was about to short circuit if he didn’t draw a breath soon . . .

  “It’s fine,” Jake intervened. He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ll stay. I mean, if I have to.”

  August stared, and when he realised that Jacob was joking, a smile won out. “I don’t recall you giving me much choice when I asked for accommodation options in Tallowwood.”

  “Well, the only accommodation option back home was my place or my parents’ pub. And my mum would have grilled you so hard, so basically, I did you a favour. If you think the interrogation skills of hard-arse, no-bullshit cops are bad, they got nothing on my mum. I mean, there’s no waterboarding involved. She doesn’t need to. She has a glare that can break the strongest of men.”

  August chuckled. “Right. Well, thanks. I guess.” He drove the car forward into a space with the number 24 painted on the floor. But Jacob noticed the tightness of his eyes and how he gripped the steering wheel. Then he got out and started grabbing bags and belongings out of the boot, so Jake quickly grabbed his own bag, and let August lead the way to the elevator. August was quiet on the way up and on the short walk to the door. He put his bags on the ground so he could get his key to open the door; he unlocked it and pushed it open. He held it ajar, and although August didn’t say anything, Jacob took it as an invitation to walk in first.

  August’s flat was nice enough. Grey carpet, light grey walls, dark grey floorboards in the kitchen. Which was also grey. As were the blinds. A comfy-looking sofa took up most of the living room, a flat-screen TV graced one wall, a bookcase lined the other. There were two photo frames on the shelves, and although Jake couldn’t see the photographs too clearly, he didn’t think he had to guess who the photos were of.

  It was very clean and tidy but terribly impersonal. It looked like a holiday rental apartment. Sure, it was liveable, but it certainly didn’t feel like a home.

  “Nice,” Jake said, looking around, trying to be polite.

  August ignored that and went to the short hallway and opened the first door. “Spare room’s here.” He pointed to the other doors. “Bathroom. My room.” He frowned and cleared his throat. “I’ll just turn the heater on.”

  Jake put his bag on the spare bed. A standard double size with a nice quilt cover and two bedside tables with a lamp each, and the room had the makings of a bedroom. But even with the huge treadmill at the foot of the bed, it felt . . . empty.

  Jake got the impression August merely existed in this apartment. As though maybe he’d actually stopped living when Christopher had died. He was closed off from everyone around him, a self-imposed exclusion zone. Jake didn’t blame August for that, because he couldn’t say he’d react any differently if he’d lost someone he loved, especially under those circumstances. Especially having been the one to find him, and especially knowing he was murdered and having no one else believe him . . .

  So yeah, Jake could understand August’s reluctance to let people in. He just wished he’d be the exception. Jacob liked August. He respected him, admired him, even. There was something between them, a quiet hum of electricity. There’d been subtle glances and gentle touches. And under normal circumstances, maybe Jake would push for more or offer more. But he knew that would only push August away. If there was to be anything between them, it would have to come from August. And given Jacob would be going back to Tallowwood soon, and more than likely August would be staying in Sydney, it wasn’t likely.

  Jake’s heart squeezed at the thought of that.

  With a quiet sigh, he got out of his uniform into some jogger pants and a sweater, and he went back out to the living room. August had his laptop on his knees, all the files spread out on the coffee table, and there was a spot on the sofa next to him which Jake sat in. Perhaps a little closer than necessary, but August never moved away so Jake considered it a win. “Where are we up to?”

  “Oh,” August said, almost as if surprised Jacob was there. “I’m seeing what else I can find on this P7849.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep going with the files. Though I can say, August, I’m seeing the same as what you’ve noted anyway.” August’s notes were fastidious, concise, and thorough. Jake didn’t imagine he’d find anything that August might have missed. “How many times have you been over these?”

  “Once or twice . . .”

  Jake smiled at that. It was probably closer to one or two hundred times. Every i was dotted, every t was crossed, but it would do Jake good to familiarise himself with the details. The devil was quite often in the details, and if there were any similarities, any links, any anything, it would be in the details.

  There were eight files in front of Jake—all the Sydney-based files, not including the two Tallowwood files—and with a wide range of ages, nationalities, and personal wealth, the only thread he could find binding all men together was their sexuality. They were all normal, everyday guys. Eight guys who held a range of normal jobs. They weren’t hookers, they weren’t druggos, they weren’t homeless—those were the kinds of people most often targeted because they wouldn’t always be missed immediately, and they were easier targets. They were often isolated, out at night, and the kinds of people whose disappearances weren’t high on the priority list of the police.


  These men? These men were the opposite of that. They were all loved and missed and mourned. It was like the killer wanted the loved ones to suffer. Did he get to witness that? Was that where his payoff was? Was he making the victims’ loved ones pay like he wanted someone in his life to pay?

  Jake took out his notepad and began making more notes.

  Dates, times, what day of the week it was. Why was the timeline and location out of sync? He’d killed seven people, that they knew of, in Sydney. Then Perry Ahern was killed in Tallowwood, then Christopher was killed in Sydney, then Tristan was killed in Tallowwood.

  Why was the killer bouncing between the two? Did he travel for work? Truck drivers were an obvious choice because Coffs Harbour was right in the middle between Brisbane and Sydney, on the Pacific Highway. It was a frequent stopping point for truckers, and Tallowwood was just a thirty-minute drive into the mountains. Kind of out of the way for someone trying to dispose of a body. But August had already looked into truck drivers and companies, drivers and rest stops.

  . . . trying to dispose of a body . . .

  “August, these cases,” Jake said, gesturing to the files, “the bodies were left for the families or loved ones to find, right?”

  August nodded. “Yeah.”

  “The Tallowwood bodies were hidden. The men were taken into the forest, killed, and left to decompose. They were found years later, by accident.”

  August frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jake hedged. He scanned the files again before looking at August. “I think there might be two killers.”

  August stared at him. “As in copycat? Or working together?”

  “I don’t know. I just think the way the bodies are left and displayed is meaningful to the killer. So why change?” Jake let his thought process sound out loud. “It wasn’t just the location that changed. Something else changed as well. But the timeline doesn’t add up. Chronologically, we have Perry, then Christopher, then Tristan. If there is only one killer, why the location and scene set-up change? If the killer’s MO evolved by the time he killed Perry, why did he regress for Christopher’s murder, then go back to his new style for Tristan? And if there are two killers, why is there a gap? Why does it go killer number one committing eight murders, killer number two kills Perry, back to killer number one for Christopher, then killer number two again for Tristan? We could still be missing more murders yet, that we don’t know about. That’s a possibility.”

  Jake took Christopher’s file and turned to the scene photographs. There was a large bathroom, expensive fittings, and a deep two-person tub. Christopher’s body was gone, but the water was left, a ring around the top stained pink indicated where the water had been when Christopher had been found.

  There was blood smeared over the side of the tub, and blood and water pooled on the floor. There was a bloodstained towel crumpled on the floor. It reminded Jake of an operating room.

  “Not pretty,” August said quietly.

  “No. Horrific, actually.”

  “I tried to save him,” August whispered. “When I got home, I found him . . . I tried to save him, apply pressure to the wound. His wrist was slit lengthways down his arm. But he was cold. The water was cold. He’d been dead almost twenty-four hours. The water did terrible things to his body . . .”

  Jake felt awful picturing that. He could only imagine what August felt. He closed the file and took August’s hand. “I’m sorry, August.”

  August gripped his hand so tight it almost hurt. “I had to sell the house,” he murmured. “I couldn’t stand to be there, to see it. To live there every day like nothing had happened. I couldn’t do it. Every time I had to use the bathroom, I’d have flashbacks.”

  Oh, fuck. Jake couldn’t even imagine. He put his free hand around August’s neck and pulled him in for a bit of a hug, but it was kind of side-on and awkward with how they were sitting. But August didn’t fight it. He laid his head on Jacob’s shoulder, his forehead pressed into Jake’s neck, and it was warm and comforting.

  Jake put his hand to the back of August’s head, and when August pulled back a little, Jake put his palm to his cheek. August had his eyes closed, and Jake wanted to kiss him, but it wasn’t the right time. Actually, it was possibly the worst time. The last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of someone at their most vulnerable.

  August was hurting, and Jacob needed to put August’s needs first. “You’re a good man, August. And you didn’t deserve any of this.”

  “Neither did Christopher.”

  “No, he certainly didn’t. It’s unfair and cruel.” Jake lifted August’s face so their eyes met. “We’re gonna catch this sonuvabitch.”

  He nodded and he leaned into Jacob’s palm with a sigh. Jake thumbed August’s cheekbone, the scruff of his beard, then across his bottom lip. August’s eyes opened, dark and intense, his lips opened, then something shut off in his eyes, causing him to recoil, and he shot up off the sofa and into the kitchen. “Want a coffee?”

  “Ah, sure!” Jake replied. Shit, shit, shit.

  August was fidgety and restless. He filled the kettle and flicked it on, wiped down the benchtop, and tidied the coffee and tea cannisters that didn’t need tidying, and he collected two mugs but then stopped and pressed his hand to his forehead.

  Instead of giving him some distance, Jake walked right up to him and put his hand over August’s and pulled it down. He gripped it firmly, warm and strong. “Hey, you okay? You look about ready to puke.”

  August stopped, and he sagged against the kitchen cabinet. “I don’t know. I freaked out. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit jumpy and I don’t even know . . .”

  “Don’t apologise. Ever. Freaking out is normal. And what are you nervous about?”

  August’s gaze shot to Jake’s. “Nervous? I’m not nervous. I just . . . I don’t . . .”

  Jake squeezed August’s hand, and interlocked their fingers. Then he moved a little closer, their fronts almost touching. “It’s okay to be nervous or anxious. Or even scared. It’s okay to freak out, and it’s okay to be sad, and it’s okay to let yourself be happy.”

  “I’ve never had anyone else here,” he whispered. “You’re the most human interaction I’ve had in years. I mean, conversation or company. I haven’t exactly coped too well . . .”

  “I’m not sure I’d cope too well either,” Jake replied gently.

  “I’m sorry for talking about Christopher so much.”

  Jake shook his head. “Don’t apologise for that either. It’s healthy to talk about him.”

  “I haven’t spoken about him in a long time. I don’t really speak to many people, let alone to people who want to hear about him.”

  “I want to hear about him.” Then, still holding August’s hand, he pulled him toward the bookcase. “Come and show me these photos. Tell me about him.”

  Jake stopped at the bookcase, and yes, sure enough, the two photos he’d seen earlier were of Christopher. One by himself, similar to the photo in Christopher’s case file. The second photo was of Christopher and August—the very photograph that had been taken at the Police Gala. The same photo Jake remembered seeing at the academy. The very photo that had imprinted on Jake’s mind, cementing the name August Shaw into his memory. “This is the picture I remember,” Jake said, touching the frame of the second photo. “I was scared as hell to be a gay cop coming through the academy, and there you were, out and proud as hell at the annual gala night.”

  August’s smile was sad. “It was a great night. He kept asking if I was sure that I wanted him to come with me. You know, people were bound to talk, and there would always be homophobic arseholes. But who was gonna argue with Christopher? He was one of the biggest guys there.”

  It was true. Christopher was a few inches taller than August, broader too. “Did he work out a lot?”

  “More than me,” August replied with a smile. “He did the whole fit-lifestyle thing because he loved it. I did it because he made m
e.”

  Jake chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?”

  August’s smile faded slowly. “We danced that night. In front of everyone. Looking back, I can’t believe I did that. I mean, the bar was open, so the dance floor was full. We weren’t the only ones, but we were the only two guys slow dancing with each other.”

  Jake pulled August a little closer, their sides touching from shoulder to thigh. “You were my idol when I was in the academy. I wasn’t sure how much of my life would be authentic as a cop, but I saw that picture . . . it meant a lot to me.”

  August faced him, their faces close, and he smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Tell me, what was he like?”

  “Christopher?”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Yes, Detective Obvious.”

  August grumbled under his breath, but Jake leaned into him a little, making August smile. “He was funny and smart. He was an area manager for a lighting company, and he loved it. He didn’t exactly love my being a cop, but he knew it was important to me. He loved to cook. He hated cleaning. He probably didn’t know which end of a mop to hold.” August smiled, perhaps at some memory only he was privy to. “He loved Led Zeppelin and The Clash, and he hated nightclub music. He read a lot, but he couldn’t stay still for too long. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “When marriage equality was passed into law, when they read the vote was yes, I sat in my car and cried.”

  Jake never spoke, but he put his hand to August’s face. August needed to say this, and Jake had to let him know he was listening.

  His eyes were a little teary now. “He would have been so happy. He should have been alive to see that, to celebrate it. They all should have lived long enough to see that. And to see gay politicians, out and proud. Or gay superhero movies, gay couples on primetime TV. He should have been alive to see that. That was stolen from him, from them all. But Christopher was robbed of that.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Coffee shop on George Street. Just a few blocks over. He’d get a soy decaf every day before work, and I’d seen him there a few times, we began smiling at each other. Then one day, it was pissing down rain so hard we had to stand under the awning out the front, and we got chatting. He worked up the street, and I was at the station, of course. In uniform back then, and he liked what he saw, apparently.” August shrugged and scoffed.