‘Four . . . it means you don’t go trying to climb that mountain again by yourself, and Doble doesn’t give you any more grief. Just saves me a headache.’ He grinned, trying to make the last statement a joke.

Pakinga handed Badenhorst a takeaway cup. When she tasted her own, she grimaced and threw the entire thing in the bin.

Badenhorst turned to the door, sipping his coffee. ‘Your choice, but we’re leaving now.’ He kept walking, Gabriella walking behind.

Murphy hesitated. Truthfully, he wanted to be up there in the mountains searching . . . but would he learn more by speaking to Eliza?

The mountains or the hospital. He stood there until Con and Gabriella were out of sight. Finally, reason won out.

‘Dave, I need to be there when they question Eliza. But stay in town for a bit. I don’t think Doble’s done with me. Butch will make sure you’re paid.’

He jogged after the detectives.

He didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, but Jasmine came first.

CHAPTER 6

CON

Con drove the squad car with the heaters on, his pants and shirt saturated. Launceston Hospital was almost an hour’s drive from Limestone Creek, but a lot faster in a police car. The red and blue lights of the Kia Stinger flashed off the guideposts as they sped through the rain and gathering gloom of the Tasmanian countryside. A glance in the side mirror showed the shrouded Great Western Tiers disappearing into the distance.

I’m gonna use every trick in the book to solve this is as quick as possible, he thought, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

Murphy leaned against the back-seat window, his wrists messily bandaged by Gabriella from the car’s first-aid kit, nursing the bottle of water they’d given him. Even though Con was blasting the warm air and Murphy was in a thick jacket, the big man was shivering: it could have been his wet clothes, it could have been shock, it could have been plain fatigue.

Con felt a nudge of unease when he thought of the man’s outbursts, up at the search area and then again at the station. Murphy had been like an animal, more beast than man. Con had worked youth cases for almost his whole police career, so he knew quite a bit about childhood trauma – how it looked, how it worked, what triggered it. Based on a look at Murphy’s police file earlier, which boasted violence, risk-taking behaviour and alleged drug dealing, Con thought there were decent odds there was trauma in that man’s past, which would help to explain the explosive anger. He’d need to tread lightly to get him to cooperate.

In the passenger seat beside him, Gabriella was on her laptop, also studying Murphy’s file. Neither of them believed Murphy’s alibi for a second, but Con still wanted him with them at the hospital.