Keeping Secrets – Chapter 1

Before we begin I'd like to thank Duffie83 for proofreading and correcting my terrible Australian English with grammatically correct American English.

Also, as we all know, reviews make for more and better stories. I'd really appreciate if you dropped me a line if you took the time to read this; good, bad or indifferent, although it would be nice if the criticisms were constructive.

Reader discretion applies for this chapter - contains strong language, violence and sex scenes.

The air temperature of the Blue Mountains often dropped below freezing in the early mornings, even though the daytime temperature could be well over thirty. The colder air allowed sound to carry further, and on that morning, the normal sounds of pipping bellbirds and warbling magpies were disturbed by a regular, dull, slightly metallic scraping sound and heavy, controlled breathing. The grey dawn rapidly faded, replaced by dappled sun filtered by morning fog. The shovelling stopped and the man gathered his tools, walking away from the raised mound of dirt hidden amongst the ghost gums.

"Fuck, Jamie, pick up the phone." It was the sixth time Amber had tried Jamie's phone since the girls made it back to her house, and the sixth voice message she left, each message becoming more frantic than the last. "Jamie, where are you. Call me back as soon as you get this!"

It was close to five o'clock on a Saturday morning, and dawn had just broken across the city. The three girls sat in Amber's bedroom, whispering amongst themselves, trying to determine the best course of action. They had been home for over an hour, sneaking in quietly in the pre-dawn darkness after trudging the streets of inner Sydney looking for their friend.

"We have to tell your mum and dad," Jessica whispered in a panicked tone.

"They'll kill us! We weren't supposed to go into the city at all tonight!" Amber's defiant response, with the underlying fear of reprimand, belied the true urgency of the situation.

"Yeah, but we have to tell someone," Jess chewed nervously on a fingernail.

"Jamie's dad's gonna totally freak out." Lucy chimed in. She had been friends with Jamie for the longest and got on well with her parents, even after she changed schools.

"Maybe we can just call the cops," Amber shivered in the morning chill. "You know, anonymously. We don't know that anything has happened. She might have got sick of us and gone home."

"Try her phone again," Jess said, hopelessly.

It was Amber's parents who ended up calling both the police and the other girls' parents. Amber's mother overheard their agitated whispers and came in to find out why they were there and to make sure everything was okay. As it turned out, everything was definitely not okay.

"Yeah, so after we finished dinner we went into Newtown to try some of those cocktail bars." Amber, the most vocal of the three girls, was now providing a statement to Detective Inspector Andrew Campbell, head of homicide, a person well and truly too senior to be interviewing teenagers about their late night activities. After the initial reporting of missing persons, Jamie's parents, Victor and Frances, strongly insisted the police do more about their missing daughter; they felt that, as international diplomats, they had a right to more police resources than the general population; they were also thoroughly convinced foul play was involved. As they had put it, where else would she have gone? She wanted for nothing, her grades were good, and they hadn't restricted her from having a boyfriend; she simply wasn't interested in anyone romantically. She was keen to succeed in her HSC and get into medicine somewhere, preferably Sydney University. As a result of this unyielding pressure, at approximately 10:30am, some six and a half hours after the girls realised their friend was missing, Detective Inspector Andrew Campbell commenced the first of many conversations regarding the matter.

"Sorry," Andy interrupted. "It says here that you are…" He flipped through his notes for the girls' ages, "Seventeen. How did you intend on getting into the clubs?"

"Like, we have fake . You know. Some of our friends are, like, over-age, and we borrowed theirs." She rummaged through her handbag, looking for her identification card. "Here."

Andy took the card from her; Shawna Kelly, born 1997, the probationary drivers licence read. The photo on the licence only matched Amber in the vaguest of ways, due the girl's brunette hair and round face. He could understand why the bouncer would have let the girl in, but it was annoying these checks could be fooled in such an unsophisticated manner. "Right, OK. Go on then." He handed the card back to the girl, who was fidgeting nervously in her chair.

"Anyway, so, like, mum and dad dropped us off in Camperdown, and we had dinner there, then we got a cab to Newtown. We got into Mixology at around nine thirty, and we stayed there until about midnight, maybe? So, we were having a fun time but Lucy wanted to go into Kings street, so we left and we thought we might be able to catch the train, but we missed the last one so we had to walk to get the bus."

"Why didn't you catch a cab?"

"We were running a bit low on money, and we all have Opal cards." She shrugged like it made perfect sense to her. "It must have taken a long time to get there," she continued, "Because by the time we got there and found somewhere we wanted to go, they wouldn't let us in."

"That must have been after 1:30 am?" Andy commented. "That's a long time to get from Newtown to Kings St."

Amber shrugged again. "Like I said, public transport isn't great here, is it?" Andy made a noncommittal noise, acknowledging the statement, but neither refuting or agreeing with it.

"Jamie was still with you at this stage in time?"

"Yeah, she was just bitching how we shouldn't have left Mixology, or how we should have got a cab."

"When did you first notice she was gone?"

"Ummm…" She glanced around the office and played with her fingertips, trying to work that part of the night out. It was the first time she really paused in her narration of the evening; it seemed she was the most dominant of the group, and perhaps most of the night's activities were her idea. They were quite inebriated when they left Mixology, but the long walk sobered them a little, so Amber was able to recount their steps with a reasonable amount of clarity, considering the circumstances. "Maybe… after we turned down George St. to try get into Ivy? We started on Sussex and headed towards The Strand."

"So you were headed East."

"Yeah, like, East. And we must have been knocked back from like two or three places."

Andy checked his map. "The last place on King would be Le Pub if you tried to get in everywhere and you turned down George." He made a note. "When did you realise she wasn't with you?"

"Maybe halfway down Martin Place. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a look." She giggled, and Andy winced slightly. She was clearly referring to the Lindt Café. Rubberneckers really hit a nerve with most police. "We were laughing and singing, and usually, Jamie wants to sing Abba really loud, but when she didn't, someone, I think Lucy, went to ask why. That was when we realised she was gone."

The interviews with the other two girls were much the same, with varying levels of exactness. Amber's parents had dropped the four of them off at Rowley's Rydges with the assumption they were having dinner, location chosen as due to the two rooms which were hired by the girls. They did not know the girls planned on going out clubbing afterwards. Andy discovered no rooms were booked for the girls at Rydges, and the assumption they were staying there was more misinformation through omission rather than straight out lying. When questioned about overnight bags and other associated paraphernalia, Amber's dad stated that he assumed the girls went to the hotel and checked in earlier and came home to get changed. The general holes in his story, whilst suspicious, did not suggest he was involved in foul play, however, more suggested he should pay more attention to his family. Amber's mother was not much better. Andy privately wondered if these people even had time for their daughter, or if she was some mere inconvenience, and he hoped he would always care about what was going on in Lina and the baby's lives.

Andy saw the group out of the station as the lunch rush subsided. Just in time for a late lunch, he ruefully thought as he headed back inside.

Gavin checked his phone, screen illuminating, no phone calls or messages. It was close to two in the morning, and he was trying to decide if he should leave the strip club or stay a bit longer. His girlfriend was interstate on a work conference, and she had left the brat with her ex. She claimed it was his weekend with the kid, but he secretly thought it was because she didn't trust him with the girl. She'd know if she ever gave him a chance. Stupid bitch. He spent all his cash earlier, and unsuccessfully tried to get one of the strippers to give him a hand job in a booth. He knew better than to try to make her do it, even though he knew he could, but he didn't want another belting from the bouncers that hung around the bar. He decided it was no fun sitting there with no lappies, almost sober, watching old broads flash their twats for money. He left and floated around the street for a while, aimlessly following random groups of people at a distance, until he spotted the four young girls, giggling loudly, stumbling about arm in arm, singing. He could hear occasional bursts of song drifting above his head. He followed them at a distance, watching their feet place unsteadily and their short skirts sporadically rise up the backs of their thighs. He followed them down King Street, watching them try to get into various pubs, bars, and nightclubs. He snorted a humourless chuckle as they even tried to get into a place that doubled as a brothel. Each time they were rejected, one of the girls shrieked and tried to slap at another. Same girl each time. He watched on, observing how after each rejection, this girl lagged further and further behind, and, after they turned left, he sped up so he was within touching distance of her. She turned left after her friends, and he followed, moving with her, pretending to check the ground for something he dropped as another group of late night revellers passed on the other side of the road. It was quiet now, the night broken only by the clopping of the high heels and his own heavy breathing. He moved up and spoke to her.

"Hi. What's a pretty girl like you doing out here so late at night?" She looked over at him, clearly startled by his appearance. Up until very recently, she had thought her only companions were her friends, the girls who had bitched at her after every ejection from every place they tried to get into, as if the lock out laws which she told them about before leaving Mixology were laws she formulated to ruin their fun.

"Ummm…." she vocalised, uncomfortable with the situation. She began to walk faster.

"Don't be scared, little girl," he said to her, speeding up to match her pace. "There's nothing to be scared of. How about I give you a lift somewhere?"

"How about you just fuck off, OK?" She sped up some more, not quite breaking out of a fast walk.

"Bitch!" He hissed at her. "You're all the same! Stupid fucking cunt!" He performed a quick sprint, lunging and grabbing her about the neck and head, clutching at her mouth to cut off any cry she might have tried to sound, before dragging her roughly into an alleyway they were just about to pass. "I'll teach you, cunt!" He growled into her ear. "I'll teach you for telling me to fuck off!" He was hard now after breathing her perfume, after feeling her soft skin under his calloused fingers. Panting heavily from the adrenaline rush, blood pounding in his eardrums and making his cock throb almost painfully in the confines of his jeans, he spun her around, grabbing her by the shoulders and jamming her up against the wall, hard enough for her head so snap back and thump up against the concrete behind them. "Are you happy now, bitch? What have you got to say now?"

"No," she squeaked, paralysed with fear, barely able to vocalise and push the word out.

"Do you want this?" He reached up with one hand under her skirt and roughly manipulated her through her panties, his other hand firmly gripping her about the throat, choking her slightly. "What was that? I can't hear you." He probed her deeper even as she tried to shake her head and tell him no, tell him to stop. "Yeah, I can feel it. You want it. You dirty little slut." He leered, leaning in and planting his mouth onto hers, forcing his tongue into her mouth as he ripped her panties off, groping into her, raping her with his fingers.

"Mmmmmmm… You're real tight, aren't you?" He grunted into her ear as he pushed his fingers in and out sharply before removing them to undo his pants. The sound of his belt buckle snapped her out of her stupor as she realised that he wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

"No!" she choked out, wriggling and fighting, scratching ineffectually at his jacket, trying to reach his face. He stopped wrestling with his jeans as he warded off her blows, angrily shaking her and telling her to stop it. He punched her in the face, hard, hard enough to break a cheekbone and cut his knuckles, before throwing her onto the ground. She hit the ground and stopped moving. "Look what you've gone and made me do now, you stupid cunt." He grunted, giving her prone body a swift kick to the ribs. She groaned, and he quickly undid his pants, took out his throbbing, erect cock, knelt between her legs and thrust in firmly and deeply, penetrating her repeatedly, brutalising her insides with his penis while he bit at her face and neck and brutalised her outside. He came with a growl, biting at her neck, imagining the beast inside him coming out at that moment, the feeling of excitement and power and glory overwhelming him for an instant before he came back to himself, the reality of what he was doing, kneeling in a dirty alleyway behind a dumpster in the early hours of a summer night having just raped a girl who he violently assaulted only minutes earlier.

"Look what you made me do," he whispered at her as he pulled his rapidly deflating cock out of her and stood, looking about in a bewildered fashion at her prone form on the ground with her legs sprawled open obscenely, cum leaking out of her. His cum leaking out of her. He started to weep. "Look what you've gone and made me do!" She groaned, stirring back into consciousness, and he rushed forward to help her sit up.

"It's ok." He whispered softly through his tears, more for his own benefit than hers.

Disoriented and in pain, she whimpered, trying to touch her face, trying to work out what happened to her, where she was, what she was doing there. She tried to talk, but she could only slur groaning sounds of pain. She looked at the man helping her, and her eyes flashed recognition, each piece of the puzzle clicking into place one by one. Petrified, she tensed her shoulders up and shook her head. "No," she slurred out.

"I didn't do it." Gavin said, reaching down to tuck himself away. "It wasn't me. I swear."

"No," she slurred again. "Was you." Every word was punctuated with pain. Her eyes locked with his. He knew what he had to do.

"What do we know about this girl?" Police Commissioner Peter Delaney and Detective Inspector Campbell were in a meeting room after the Commissioner spent over forty minutes on the phone assuring Mr. Latif, Malaysian consul, that NSW did indeed treat the matter seriously and were putting their best officers on the job.

"Seventeen, just finished her HSC, they have exams to go, of course, but she was probably going to finish top 10 at school. She attended North Sydney Girls High, a selective government school, but she socialised with girls from her previous high school. This was the first time they tried to pull something like this, according to her friends, and that's why they got caught out in the early hours of the morning." He took a breath, ready to tick off everything else they knew. "No boyfriend, good marks, mum and dad have money, Malaysian citizen. They've been in Sydney since she was eleven."

"Have we done a walk-through to verify the statements from the other girls?"

"We've got uniforms canvassing the area and checking for footage now."

"Andy, we need to be careful about this one. If word gets out that we didn't search thoroughly enough, the AG's going to be all over us. If the media finds out, it'll be painted as a hate crime. Are these people Muslims?"

"Yeah."

"Bloody great. As soon as that gets out, we're all going to be up Shit Creek."

Andy's phone rang just then. He looked at Peter, who motioned for him to take the call. "Karen. What have you found?" He frowned, and looked down at the table. "OK. Yep. I'm with him now. Yep. Yep. OK. Good work. Keep me informed." He ended the call and looked back up at Peter. "They found evidence of a struggle on one of the alleyways off George St. Some drag marks, evidence of blood and a pair of discarded underwear. We'll have to verify with DNA, but it looks like we might have a homicide on our hands."

Sitting in a meeting room with seven other people, Bianca flicked through the papers in the folder sitting in front of her while she listened to Detective Inspector Campbell from the front of the room. She gave no indication that she worked with him before, and raised an index finger and nodded in acknowledgement when Andy introduced her and explained her position, role and why the Feds were involved. Prior to this assignment, she was working as liaison to Interpol for the Australian Federal Police, and surveillance before that. Her notes held brief resumes for each of the officers in the room; she was the only federal officer; there was an equal match of men and women. The bulk of the taskforce were made up of NSW homicide staff, however, Senior Constable Danica Marks came from the sex crimes unit and Sergeant Kon Petrakis was from missing persons. They would utilise the existing internal homicide administration staff for all administrative issues.

The brief was simple enough; on the morning of the third of October, a schoolgirl went missing between King St. and George St. in Sydney's CBD. Upon canvassing the site the next day, evidence of struggle was found including drag marks, blood spatters and other DNA containing fluids. Two separate individuals were identified, a male and a female. The female DNA matched the samples provided by the missing girl's parents. Several weeks later, a dog walker stumbled across a shallow grave past Linden, and Mr. and Mrs. Latif positively identified the body as their daughter.

The girl died of suffocation; she had soil in her lungs and heavy bruising on her neck, including fingernail marks. Her cheek bone, eye socket and jaw were broken. Hairline fractures radiated from the back of her skull, and four ribs were broken. She had been sexually assaulted, with bruising on her pelvis, her vagina, and her inner thighs. The DNA swabs revealed a match between the fluids recovered from the alleyway and under her fingernails. There were 15 separate bite marks on her face, neck and breasts. None of the CCTV footage obtained from the area revealed any clues. Most of the cameras only showed the entrance to the venues; the security staff were been trained to deal with any unruly patrons beyond the watchful eye of Big Brother. The girl's father, a Malaysian national, and a Malaysian consul diplomat, was highly distressed that his only daughter had been brutalised and buried alive. He was waiting for her body to be released so they could take her home and put her to rest.

Bianca shut the file. It was a straight-forward case. The reason they had formed a taskforce was due to the high international profile of the victim's family; they needed to be seen doing something, even though a case like this would normally be handled within homicide. Andy mentioned to her that he didn't mind too much, as the additional funds took pressure off regular department expenditure while allowing him to recruit extra staff because his regular staff were assigned to this taskforce.

Andy stood in front of a large whiteboard, on which an autopsy photo, crime scene photos, and several maps of Sydney, both inner and outer suburbs, were been pinned. "As you can see we've canvassed the area and spoken to most of the witnesses to verify the girls' whereabouts that night. We can track them before Jamie went missing, and we can track them after, while they were looking for Jamie. They started here, at 1:38 am." He points to the intersection of King St and Sussex St. "And they headed East. There is about a 20 minute window that we can't track them, in this zone." He pointed to an area around George St on the map of Sydney's CBD. "Jamie went missing at this time. We can tell because we have some ATM footage of the girls walking along Martin Place, and it takes them about 45 mins to work out that their friend is missing. We have to see if we can work out who this perp is, if he's on any footage and basically find him. We'll be working out of HQ here, in Parramatta, we've got this room and the one next door, and we'll all be sharing space next door. Except me, I get to keep my office. Boss' prerogative. Desks have been installed, but you'll have to move your own stuff. Bianca will be working out of HQ while she's on this as well. She's been assigned to us full time, the rest of you will have to keep an eye out at your own departments as well, make sure that you're on top of anything that comes in. All assignments will have to be run through me, but we can't have Sydney's finest stop because of one homicide. While we don't have a timeframe, we don't have an open chequebook either, so let's get a move on. Any questions?"