Huddling in his jacket as he waited for the station’s heater to kick in, Jake wondered briefly what it might be like to spend an entire career in the one location, as Kelly had, working with the same one or two colleagues year after year, mollifying the same people leaning against the battered wooden front counter complaining about their neighbours, and letting the same sad drunks sleep it off in the lock-up. Not to mention contending with a consistent lack of decent breakfasts.
He couldn’t imagine how Kelly could have developed into the officer he seemed to be without the exposure to a wide range of supervisors, training and situations that Jake had enjoyed. Perhaps it took a particular personality type to thrive in the country.
He stabbed at his breakfast with his spoon and reviewed his strategy for the day. The interviews and research he needed to conduct far outstripped the time available; the lack of back-up from Hobart was beginning to pinch. So he would line up interviews at the station to save travel time and direct Murphy to search for the records he needed.
The constable’s latest attempt at a report was almost nonsensical, so the more time he spent reading anything the better. Perhaps his sentence structure and arrangement of ideas could improve by osmosis?
Pushing the unappetising fodder aside, Jake flicked through Ava O’Brien’s diaries while he waited for a vaguely acceptable hour to start making calls.
*
‘Doctor Gill?’
‘Yes?’ She sounded half asleep.
Jake explained her colleague’s discovery of Amelia’s genital mutilation, then paused awkwardly before ploughing on with his request. ‘I’m sorry to ask on a Sunday, but is there any chance you could start a search today for records of any women who have presented with genital mutilation or modification, or finger mutilation?’
Doctor Meena Gill sighed deeply. ‘This is my first whole Sunday off in two months. I was having a sleep-in, then I was going to take my poor, lonely dog for a long walk.’
Jake waited.
She tsked. ‘Give me till midday and I’ll head in. FSST had better send us some back-up tomorrow because this is getting ridiculous.’
‘We’re working on it.’
Next, Jake called Kelly who agreed to line up interviews with the MacDonalds, Charlotte Murphy and Liam O’Brien today. ‘You have all the established relationships,’ Jake explained. ‘You can put their minds at ease that they’re just helping with enquiries.’
Murphy arrived shortly after, keen to be involved in any way Jake saw fit.
‘First, you need to confirm if any of our campers raised a red flag.’
‘I’ve run background checks on all of them—nothing significant came back,’ replied Murphy. ‘It’s all in the report I left on your desk.’
‘Okay. That wasn’t clear from the report. You’ve run them all down?’
Murphy frowned. ‘Yes!’
‘Start by notifying them that they’re free to leave the area when they wish then.’
‘No problem.’
‘Next, we need to follow two lines of enquiry. First, is there a broader pattern here? We need to interview other former residents of the home for that. So I need a list of them, where they live now, and—while you’re at it—any financial records for the home you can dig up.’