Kathryn Fox - Without Consent

On the night of the murder, Eileen Randall had been to the only cinema in town. Willard had shown interest in one of her friends, and Eileen told him to “rack off.” Witnesses said he responded by swearing at Eileen and telling her she was a stuck-up bitch. They all walked home, and a girlfriend thought Eileen was meeting a new “mystery” boy later that night, but didn’t know his name.

The melodramatics of adolescence read like a soap opera, Anya thought, sipping the sparkling Pinot noir. The miniature bubbles danced in her glass. At times, being an adult definitely had its advantages. She could drink alcohol inside, not on a street corner. Then again, at times life still played like a soap opera.

So Eileen Randall sneaked out without her parents knowing and was murdered that night.

Anya began laying out piles of documents on the sofa and floor. The PM photos had faded a little, but were still reasonable images. The upper body was streaked with multiple stab wounds, some deep and others superficial. Most of the wounds were inflicted pre-mortem. Just like in the Dorman murder.

The police had collected her clothes, which they described as damp. The girl’s jeans showed some blood splatters, but her feet were unmarked and clean.

Anya took mental note of that. Normally in a stabbing, unless the body is horizontal the whole time, blood drips onto the legs and feet.

There appeared to be little blood at the scene, although some may have soaked into the sand and been difficult to identify on photographs. Some hairs had adhered to her shirt, found later to be canine, not human.

Anya grabbed a pad and pen. “Wet clothes, clean feet,” she wrote. With the pen between her teeth, she searched for a weather report. Twenty-two degrees Celsius, with high-level humidity, winds of twenty to thirty knots.

Beneath the weather report was a photograph of Geoffrey Willard on arrest, holding both arms out. The front of his shirt was smeared with blood. His arms appeared free of injuries. There were no “stabber’s wounds,” left when the attacker’s hand slid over the handle of the knife and on to the blade. His hands were free of scratches and bruises as well. Eileen Randall may not have had the time nor the strength to fight Willard.

She flicked back to the PM report. Alf Carney had listed time of death as between one and two a.m., the time Willard was found with the body. The conclusion was based on stomach contents and the time of the last meal. Anya scribbled “time of death questionable,” and underlined it twice.

Time of death was one of the most misunderstood aspects of pathology and one of Anya’s pet annoyances. Former criteria such as analysis of stomach contents had long been proved inaccurate. Rates of digestion were so variable that it was a notoriously unreliable gauge.

Genital examination had found sperm in the vagina. The only tests available at the time found that the ejaculator had the blood-group O negative.

Anya took a closer look at some of the crime-scene photographs. Evidence on beaches could be difficult, thanks to the continuing tides. She’d occasionally thought that the best place to commit a murder was far out at sea, or, if on the beach, preferably during a storm.

She read through the organ systems on the PM report. Despite no saltwater in the larynx or lungs, Carney had found some in the pleural space between the lungs and ribs. He performed a Gettler test to determine chloride levels in the heart. The results showed there was no evidence of saltwater inhalation. Eileen Randall hadn’t been drowned, despite her clothing being so wet. At least Carney was thorough enough to check, she thought. Maybe the clothes were damp because of the high humidity that night. She wrote a question mark on the pad.

Flicking through the histology results on the back page, Anya noticed something she’d never seen before. Some kind of infestation, deemed crayfish larvae, was found in the pleural cavity.

She paused and performed a web search on her laptop. Crayfish larvae only lived in water. They were not found in the sand. Anya felt herself shiver. The tiny creatures had crawled in through the stab wounds. It was the only probable explanation. She would probably avoid eating crayfish from now on.

Tired, Anya wondered why the photo of a young Geoff Willard showed a relatively small blood smear on his shirt. If he’d stabbed Eileen Randall in excess of thirty times, why wasn’t he covered in splashes and spurts consistent with her injuries? More importantly, why hadn’t Carney’s pathology report commented on that?

The following morning, Anya awoke tothe sound of the ocean slapping the shore. Overnight drizzle had made the sleeping temperature ideal. After a lie-in, she cooked French toast and headed for a walk. Even in the off-season, Fisherman’s Bay was active. Older couples walked hand-in-hand on the beach as anglers patiently waited for the next big catch. Toddlers squealed for the sake of it as they chased the waves, then ran away as fast as their chubby legs could manage.

At the end of the beach, she passed a playground opposite the newsagent. Stopping to buy a paper, she asked the man at the counter whether he remembered the Eileen Randall case. The owner seemed less than willing to talk.

“You’re not from the bloody press, are you?”

“No. Definitely not. I was wondering if you know what happened to the policeman who was in charge at the time. I don’t suppose he’s still working?”

“No chance,” the man said. “Charlie Boyd retired years ago.”

Not surprised, Anya paid for the paper, thanked the man and wandered past the tempting smell of hot pastries from the bakery. Sea air definitely increased the appetite, she thought, as kids on bikes rode on the footpath, chomping on pies. The place had such a holiday atmosphere, it was impossible not to feel relaxed.

Just past the hairdresser’s, she felt a tap on her back.

“Excuse me,” a middle-aged woman said. “Were you asking about the Randall case?”

The woman had a broad-brimmed hat tied under her chin. And unlike the tourists, she had on a long-sleeved shirt and long cotton trousers. Her hands were coarse and tanned. She had to be a local used to hiding from the sun, not basking in it.

“Yes, I was hoping to speak to the former policeman, but he’s retired. Do you know anything about the case?”

“You have to understand, people around here are careful about who they talk to. The murder pretty much killed business a while back. And the whole town suffered from the loss of that girl. We don’t want it all dredged up again.”

“I understand, but I’m a pathologist and I just had some questions for Charlie Boyd.”

“A pathologist?” Her eyes widened. “Like on those TV crime shows? Why didn’t you say?”

It astounded Anya that a few years ago no one cared what she did for a living. Now it was flavor of the month.

“Charlie will probably talk to you, then.”

A teenager on a bike whizzed past them, almost clipping Anya. The woman called after him, “I’ll be telling your mother you’ve been riding on the footpath again, Jason Carmichael.”

Anya smiled. People were pretty much the same everywhere.

“Do you know where I could find Charlie?”

“Oh yes, love, down on the wharf. He’s usually there this time of day. You can’t miss him. Looks like Santa Claus with a big silver beard.”

“Thanks so much,” she said, and headed toward the jetty.

Teenagers took turns jumping off the pylons into the water below. She stopped and looked over the side, checking the depth marker.

“It’s deep down there. There’s never been a problem,” a man reassured. He was with the jumpers and was probably used to strangers showing concern about the practice.