Deconstructing Bridges

Chapter Sixteen

Captain Parker handed over a sheaf of paper.

It was the next day at the precinct, and Matthew still had not recovered from the realisation that he still could love a woman who had cut him so deeply. He didn't even know who the real Rose was, yet she still owned such a large part of him. For the rest of the day yesterday, she had refused to emerge from the room and had refused to talk to him, so he had even tried to engage her in an argument. She had simply ignored him. He didn't know whether to be relieved that she showed signs of being affected by the sight of him with someone else, or extremely distressed at the level of contempt she clearly held for him. There was also room for guilt at having momentarily succumbed to the allure of an attentive woman, and hurting said woman's feelings in the process.

Quite frankly, whichever way he looked at it he was screwed.

To make matters a thousand times worse, when he had first stepped into the office, he had been informed that overnight two more deceased bodies had been discovered in the Yarra River. Both females had apparently been strangled to death prior to their bodies being dumped. Both were identified as missing persons from Victoria within the last five years. Toree Fallon, aged eighteen and Sylvia Belmonte, aged seventeen, now added to the list. Whatever these girls were to Marshall, the idea that he would cull two more on the heels of the death of his right hand man meant he was panicking. A panicked criminal was ten times more dangerous than a calm, calculating one. Matthew's heart had sunk as he examined the photographs. Two more deaths, that despite their advancements in the case, they had not been able to prevent.

Turning his attention to the paper in his hand, he noted it was a transcript of a conversation between Owen Lindfield and Eddie.

"When did this interview happen?"

"Yesterday, before we discovered the girls," Parker replied.

"We finally met with an investigator from the Ballarat team in the morning, and Eddie then corroborated it with Lindfield."

Matthew studied the transcript. Owen had admitted that yes, he had known the Lawson family when he'd been a teenager. He'd admitted that he'd been friends with Nichole Lawson, good friends, however when they moved to the topic of what happened to the Lawson family, he remained stubbornly tight-lipped.

But he had also hinted something else.

"When I saw Nichole five years ago..." and then he had stopped, realising what he had revealed.

Despite Bethany quietly urging him to talk, saying everything would be alright and to trust her, he had told her to quieten down. After almost ten minutes of urging, he'd stated that he had attempted to commiserate with her about her family being dead, but she hadn't wanted to talk about it, and they had quickly parted ways after that.

"Well, that was a load of bullshit," Matthew muttered and Parker rolled his eyes.

"No kidding. We'll keep pressing him, but it would really help if we had something to force him to cooperate. Even the idea of a lenient sentence didn't tempt him to open his mouth one tiny bit when it came to Marshall."

"Something as in something from Rose?"

Parker looked at him oddly, and he sighed.

"Nichole. I mean Nichole."

After studying him carefully, Parker leaned forward, his hands clasped on the table.

"Bridges, we struck a temporary deal and got her out of prison because she hadn't done anything worth holding her, and because we obviously realised there was a tragic reason behind what she's done. But we also did it because we needed her help, and we wanted her to trust us. Perhaps she made a tiny step towards opening up, but we desperately need more. Two more dead girls, Bridges. It's a bloody shit storm. We now have five dead girls, not to mention the other casualties, and we have no idea what's coming next."