The light was on, as well as a radio. He leant forward to peer inside.

There was a body slumped in the middle of the floor. From this angle Jake couldn’t tell if it was the senior or junior Campbell.

He raced to the back door, found it open, and rushed inside to check for a pulse.

Chapter Eight

Dunton, Tasmania

Sunday, 6.37 p.m.

Mason lay on the floor. Jake paused momentarily to take in the scene and ensure they were alone.

There were no signs of anyone else having been in the room recently. One tea mug sat on the table and a single cast-iron frypan lay on on the stainless-steel draining board next to the sink, still glistening from being washed. Otherwise, nothing.

Jake knelt beside Mason Campbell and checked for a pulse. The old bugger was still alive, despite the blood pooled beneath his head.

With a heavy sense of déjà vu, Jake called for an ambulance.

Once he had seen the unconscious old man safely strapped to a gurney and off to hospital—his fretting son Max following in his rental car—Jake rang Doctor Gill.

‘You don’t have to send someone our way every day, you know,’ she said.

‘I’ll cancel our order for tomorrow,’ Jake kidded back.

‘Did it look like an accident, or …?’

‘Or, unfortunately. At first I thought he’d collapsed and hit his head on a chair or the table on the way down, but the way he was lying made that unlikely. Judging by the size of the wound, he appears to have been struck from behind by something substantial while he was standing in the middle of the kitchen.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘No. His son was upstairs at the time.’ Max was also currently the only suspect in the attack on his father, if that’s what it was.

‘Do you think this is related to your murder case?’

‘I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but …’ Jake was about to launch into a rundown of his case, and the possible implications of this latest development, when he pulled himself up. He may have been feeling tired, even a touch overwhelmed by the speed with which this investigation was gaining complexity, but that was no excuse for inappropriately sharing details with someone he barely knew. He just had to suck it up, keep moving forward and trust in his skills as a detective to find the answers.

‘To be honest, I was calling in the hope that your day has been more productive than mine.’

‘Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t had a chance to examine Ava O’Brien any further, and I haven’t found anything useful in our archives for you. There are no records of Ava or anyone from the address you gave for the girls’ home coming in. The Campbells in the house next door, yes—Mrs Campbell gave birth to Max here, then later she needed minor surgery after a burst ovarian cyst. And Mason has attended for a few farm injuries over the years, but otherwise nothing.’