Jake pressed two fingers into the crook of O’Brien’s neck. Not only was there no pulse, his flesh had the rigid, waxy feel of a body in the latter stages of rigour.

He sighed heavily and pulled out his phone to call for an ambulance.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dunton, Tasmania

Thursday, 9.16 a.m.

‘I’ll begin the autopsy as soon as his body arrives,’ Meena said to Jake as he explained whose body was on the way to her morgue. ‘What’s the most urgent thing you need to know?’

‘He’s left a note claiming responsibility for his sister’s death. I need to know if he was capable of strangling her with his hands …’

‘He was the older man visiting Mason Campbell?’

‘Yes.’

‘He probably could have, although it would have been a struggle.’

‘Also, could he have carried her body a significant distance across wet and muddy ground to dump her in the vineyard?’

‘Although Ava was small, from memory he wasn’t much bigger, was he?’

‘Not much.’

‘It doesn’t sound plausible, but I’ll be able to give you a firmer opinion once I’ve had a chance to look him over.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You really are racking them up, aren’t you?’ Her tone was light.

Jake smiled into the phone. ‘Changed your mind about me?’

‘Oh no, you owe me, mister. I expect the fanciest restau­rant in town.’

‘You know that’s probably going to be Chinese at the RSL?’

‘Love a good stir-fry.’

Jake’s grin dropped away as he hung up and re-entered O’Brien’s house. He hadn’t expected to find anyone he was interested in here. He had promised himself he would focus solely on reviewing his life to date and making plans for his future. He certainly didn’t want to become involved with someone to the extent that he needed to choose between staying in Tasmania and moving on with his life.

What was he thinking? They hadn’t been out once yet. He needed to focus on the matter at hand.

As the house was now the scene of a suspicious death, and as the former occupant was a suspect in multiple offences against children, Jake believed he had a right to search the premises.

Snapping on latex gloves, his first move was to open every window in the house. If Ava’s home had been a study in neat and tidy, Liam’s house was the epitome of savage neglect. The air inside was thick with the stench of rotting food and mould. Jake could only imagine how foul it must have been in high summer.

At the top of Jake’s list of preferred discoveries would be the missing twenty years of Ava’s diaries. If someone had removed them from her home before Jake had a chance to search it, her brother was the most likely candidate.