Eliza backed further away, her torch knocked from her fingers.

‘What’s that thing? Is it tied to her wrist?’

‘It’s a wooden statue.’

‘It’s voodoo! It’s voodoo!’

‘Everyone! Police! Don’t touch anything!’ Con Badenhorst’s voice boomed as he stepped through the crowd.

Gabriella let go of Eliza, running to him.

Suddenly Murphy appeared in front of Eliza. ‘Don’t look at her, Eliza. Look at me.’ He put his big hands on either side of her face to drag her eyes away from Bree’s body.

‘Why are all these people here?’ Eliza struggled to focus her vision.

‘Madison’s vigil. Weren’t you with us?’

‘Madison is here?’ Eliza spun around. ‘Where?’

It was chaos. People swarming around the clearing, voices mingling, screams and sobs. Children and adults, teenagers and the elderly, locals and strangers, people everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

‘Where are you, Madison?’ screamed Eliza, her voice lost in the cacophony. ‘Are you happy? Are you happy?’

But Madison was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER 38

CON

It was a long night up at the Hanging Tree.

Con watched as the forensics team went to work, the clearing lit up by their floodlights, casting everything into high relief and drawing biting insects to the scene. And always, the devils howled in the night.

Finally, Bree’s body was lowered out of the tree. He had vomited twice already, back in the trees where nobody could see, but he still shook uncontrollably.

Pull it together, Cornelius, he told himself, digging his nails into his palms to force the images of the Jaguar girls out of his head. There’s nothing you could’ve done.

He asked to inspect the wooden statue that had been tied to her wrist before Forensics bagged it. The statue had baling twine in a noose around its neck and chips of bone that had been hammered into its eyes. They hadn’t tested it yet, but everyone felt sure they were animal bones. Forensics continued to do their job, their team leader speaking to the recently arrived commander and Melinda Tran.

‘It was part of that ritual Yani told us about,’ said Murphy, crouching next to Con at the edge of the clearing. ‘Blind its eyes, hang a girl from a tree to die.’

Con didn’t reply. He suspected Gabriella wanted to tell him the same thing – she’d been calling his phone on repeat ever since he’d dismissed her. Finding her in the crowd at the tree had been a blow – she was one of the few people who understood what seeing Bree’s body would do to him, triggered in him. It was always worse when someone knew. He’d avoided her and she had eventually left, presumably to take Eliza home, with the teacher in a serious state.