Mortalis || irwin

[ 21 ] 1969

[ 21 ] 1969

-

"We have a ten-thirty three on Firestone Avenue."

-

The investigation for the murders of the Irwin family went unsolved for six more years, and there was still no suspect. The criminal, or criminals, had done a good job to avoid leaving any evidence behind. The Sydney police department had given up on the case and considered it closed, but there was one cop who could not let the investigation die.

He was Bobby Vega, who had been a close friend of Ashton.

Now twenty two years old, he had been able to rise up the ranks of the police department with ease. He was a very intelligent officer, and had been able to solve every case presented to him. All except The Multiple Murder of the Irwin Family, as the police files were labeled in his office. There were documents and photographs of the scene scattered everywhere and the young police officer spent the vast majority of his time locked up within the walls of his office with a cigarette in between his pursed lips and a document in his hands, brown eyes scanning every inch of it.

It was still an open case because he still insisted that he was close to reaching a breakthrough, and as part of the police department he had the authority to request keeping the case open. Bobby had promised Ashton he would solve the case in his honor.

He had promised it to Claire as well.

In the subsequent years after Ashton died, Bobby and Claire had become very close. He had yet to learn that her reasons for befriending him were purely selfish. Where at first she had done it to spite Hayley, now she did it to keep Bobby distracted during his investigation of the murder case involving Ashton Irwin and his family.

Whatever the reason was that Claire was seeking out Bobby, Hayley was unhappy with it. Her jealousy at Claire spending time with Bobby had eventually reached a point where Bobby began to feel suffocated and began dreading spending time with his girlfriend. 

It was only a year prior, nearly two, that he had broken up with her. The pain that the break up caused her left the young woman hating Bobby, but hating Claire Feeney even more for succeeding in taking her boyfriend away from her. In hopes of patching up their relationship again, she would often show up at his office at the police station with a picnic basket full of all his favorite foods, just like she did when they were dating. And she wrote him various letters expressing her hurt after he left her, and the love she still had for him.

Though he still had feelings for her, he felt it just wasn't the same and that they both needed to move on. His rejection drove her more and more angry with him and Claire, especially after Claire continuously hinted that she and Bobby were dating.

Hayley ended up moving away to Perth in order to start a new life, and Bobby didn't hear from her again. The last bit of news of her he got was when Claire happened to casually mention to him that Hayley had gotten a new boyfriend named Thomas Davis and was already engaged to him so quickly into their relationship. The news briefly wounded Bobby's feelings, as well as his ego, because he found he still loved Hayley and she wasn't coming back to him after the way he had pushed her away.

He sought emotional comfort in his friendship with Claire and she gladly accepted to help him. Having him close by and sulking over Hayley was much more helpful for her than having him snoop around the crime scene at Ashton's house yet another time. He had been there so many times that he probably could walk through the entire house blindfolded and not stumble once. Claire was surprised he had found nothing yet, then again Con was great at concealing things he didn't want people to know about.