Distraction

By Peter Mulraney

Distraction: a thing that prevents someone from concentrating on something else.
Travers and Palumbo join the investigation to identify who killed Sarah Taylor and abducted her four-year-old daughter, Ella.
A group calling itself 4 Freedom claims responsibility for the abduction and demands an end to the vaccine mandates.
The investigators get a lucky break - but their celebrations are short lived. 4 Freedom strikes again, and they are left wondering if Ella's abduction was a planned distraction - something designed to divert their attention away from 4 Freedom's real agenda.
If you like a murder mystery with unexpected twists, you'll enjoy Distraction, the second book in Peter Mulraney's Travers and Palumbo series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Mulraney
• Release date: Jul 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9780645882902

Peter Mulraney

Peter grew up in country South Australia, before going to Adelaide to complete high school and attend university. While he was studying in the city, he met an Italian girl and forgot to go home. Now he's married and has two grown children. He worked as a teacher, an insurance agent, a banker and a public servant. Now, he gets to write every day instead. He is the author of the Inspector West and Stella Bruno Investigates crime series; the Living Alone series, for men who find themselves alone at the end of a long term relationship; and the Everyday Business Skills series for people looking to take advantage of his knowledge and skills. As a mystic, he has written several books which explores some of life's deeper questions, including Sharing the Journey: Reflections of a Reluctant Mystic, and My Life is My Responsibility: Insights for Conscious Living.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Dr Sam Taylor had spent a long Monday doing what he could to keep the desperately ill Covid patients under his care alive. Exhausted, he exited the hospital at the end of his shift looking forward to a good night’s sleep, before having to come back and do it all again.

In the fog of his tiredness, the eighteen kilometre drive to his home in High Street, Stirling, seemed to take forever. In reality, it took him a little over thirty minutes, like it did most nights.

Sam pulled into the driveway of the house, nestled among a forest of towering eucalyptus trees on the outskirts of Stirling, one of the older settlements in the hills east of Adelaide. They’d bought the place for its secluded location three years ago when he’d secured his position at Flinders, the main hospital servicing the southern suburbs. He pressed the button on the remote resting in the well of the centre console and waited for the roller door to lift, before driving into the double garage at the front of the house.

As he listened to the roller door closing, Sam sensed that something wasn’t quite right. His wife’s car was parked in its usual spot but the door leading into the house was open, and the interior of the house through the open doorway was in darkness. Sarah always shut that door - they had a four-year old daughter.

Sam walked into the hallway and flicked on the lights. ‘Ella! Daddy’s home!’

He waited for Ella to come running into his arms as she did most nights when he announced his arrival home from work. There was no sound of movement from within the house.

‘Sarah?’

Silence. What were they up to? Were they planning some sort of surprise for him? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d done something unexpected to welcome him home from a stress filled day at work.

Sam walked down the corridor turning on lights and peering into rooms as he went, half expecting them to appear from their hiding place. There was no sign of them, apart from the backpack Ella took with her to kindergarten sitting on the kitchen bench.

Standing in the living area, he checked his phone for messages in case he’d missed one from Sarah. Nothing. He called her number and heard what sounded like her phone ringing from somewhere outside. They must be hiding out on the alfresco. He could almost see the frown forming on Sarah’s face, knowing she’d be disappointed he’d resorted to ringing her phone, instead of waiting for them to spring their surprise.

He turned on the lights that illuminated the alfresco dining area at the rear of the house and stepped outside through the sliding glass door, expecting them to shout: ‘Surprise!’ But there was no shouting. There was only an involuntary gasp when he spotted Sarah, sprawled on her back next to the garden bed with a startled look on her face.

Instinctively, Sam bent to check Sarah’s body for a pulse, knowing he wasn’t going to find one. He’d seen enough dead bodies to know she wasn’t alive the moment he’d spotted her lying on the paving stones. Her neck was cold to his touch. He pulled his hand away, sank to his knees and screamed. After the day he’d had fighting to save lives, coming home to this was just too much to bear.

After a few moments lost in absolute anguish, Sam got to his feet slowly and looked around. What in God’s name had happened? Had she tripped and hit her head? It didn’t make sense. Sarah was athletic. She had a great sense of balance. She didn’t go around tripping over herself.

Sam realised he might be going into shock. He couldn’t let himself do that. He took a couple of deep breaths and told himself to stay calm. He had to find Ella. Where was she? She must be frightened. She would have been at home alone for hours, going by the temperature of Sarah’s body.

‘Ella! It’s Daddy! Where are you?’

No response. Not even a sniffle.

He ran into the darkness of the yard, beyond the reach of the light illuminating the alfresco, calling her name. He crashed into the wheelbarrow he’d left in the garden on the weekend and tumbled into the remains of their summer vegetables.

He dusted himself off and went inside to get the torch he kept in the laundry, then returned and searched the yard calling her name until his voice was hoarse. There was no sign of her. Perhaps she had wandered off into the forest surrounding the house in an attempt to get help from one of the neighbours.

Sam didn’t know what to think. Sarah was dead and Ella was nowhere to be found. He leant against a tree, fighting back tears of desperation.

Realising he’d need help if he was to find Ella, he pulled out his phone and called his father-in-law: the Police Commissioner.

CHAPTER 2

Two days after the news of Sarah Taylor’s death and the search for her missing daughter had become headline news across the nation, Detective Sergeant Pat Travers returned to work after a mild case of Covid. As soon as he’d sat at his desk, intending to log on and work through his inbox, he was summoned into Detective Inspector Smith’s office.

‘Have a seat, Pat,’ said Inspector Smith. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Right as rain, sir. It’ll take more than bloody Covid to kill me.’

‘That’s the spirit.’ Inspector Smith shuffled the papers on his desk until he found the one he wanted. ‘You hear about the Commissioner’s daughter?’

‘Pretty hard not to,’ said Pat. ‘Any news on his grand-daughter?’

‘Still missing, I’m afraid.’

Shit, thought Pat. Two days out in this heat, that couldn’t be good. ‘Who’s leading the investigation?’

‘Uniform are conducting the search and DCI Roberts is heading up the murder investigation,’ said Inspector Smith, passing Pat the sheet of paper he’d retrieved from his desktop. ‘He’s asked for you and Palumbo to be assigned to the investigation as soon as you returned from leave.’

Pat glanced at the piece of paper Inspector Smith had given him. He hadn’t worked with Max Roberts since 2016, when he’d taken leave on the death of his wife, Pam . ‘Why? I would have thought DCI Roberts has more than enough talent at his disposal.’

‘This Omicron variant’s been through the place, Pat. You aren’t the only one it’s hit, meaning DCI Roberts is short staffed. Besides, I understand the Commissioner wants you on the team.

‘Oh,’ said Pat, wondering why the Commissioner thought he had anything special to add to the investigation.

‘Don’t let it go to your head, Pat. He probably only wants a calm head in that team,’ said Inspector Smith, smiling. ‘Have you heard from Palumbo?’

‘She’ll be out of isolation tomorrow.’

‘Good.’ Inspector Smith leant back in his chair. ‘DCI Roberts has set up shop on the fifth. He’s expecting you at nine.’

‘Right, sir. Guess I’d better go and see him, then.’

Pat took the stairs up to the fifth. It was only two flights and he knew he needed the exercise. Max Roberts had been his boss when he’d been just plain DI Roberts. Pat wondered if the extra responsibilities of being a DCI had curtailed Max’s exuberance and his tendency to go with his gut feelings, instead of where the evidence suggested they should look. Hopefully, he’d get to report to one of Max’s underlings and not have to contend with the man himself.

‘Ah, Travers,’ said DCI Roberts, holding out his hand and then letting it drop by his side, as if he’d remembered they weren’t supposed to be doing that. ‘It’s been a while. How are you? Heard you had the Covid. Man, I had it something shocking before they got the bloody vaccines rolled out. Sit down.’

Max hadn’t lost any weight since Pat had last seen him but he’d lost most of his hair. ‘I was lucky,’ said Pat, sitting on the seat in front of the DCI’s desk. ‘Got away with a headache and just feeling sleepy for a week.’

‘Must be the luck of the Irish, Travers. I was so bloody crook I thought I was gonna die. Ended up spending a week in Flinders but they brought me back from the brink. And, would you believe it, I was treated by the husband of our victim.’

‘Small world,’ said Pat.

‘You can say that again. Wasn’t expecting to meet him again under these circumstances, poor bastard.’

‘Me neither. I was at their wedding.’

‘Maybe that’s why the Commissioner wants you on this case,’ said DCI Roberts.

More likely he wants me to keep you on the straight and narrow, thought Pat. ‘Could be,’ he heard himself say instead. ‘Anyway, it’s been a couple of days, what do we know?’

‘Not much,’ said DCI Roberts. ‘I’ll send you the crime scene report. See what you can make of it.’

‘Are we sure it’s murder?’

‘Pathologist thinks so. I’ll send you his initial report as well.’

‘Who will I be reporting to?’

DCI Roberts rested his arms on his desktop. ‘I want you and Palumbo to report to me. I’ve got Derek Ryan. You remember him? He’s a DI now. He’ll run the incident room and organise the troops. I want you to review everything before we make any final decisions. Your job is to make sure we follow the evidence in case I get carried away. We can’t afford to fuck this up, Travers. This is the Commissioner’s daughter we’re talking about.’

‘What about the girl?’

‘Not looking good, I’m afraid. Initially, we thought she’d just wandered off, so we searched the woodland around the house and door-knocked the neighbourhood. That was before Dr Taylor calmed down and had a good look around the house with the crime scene boys and girls. Now it appears she was taken by whoever killed her mother, since the good doctor is saying the child’s car seat is missing from his wife’s car and he thinks some of her clothes and toys are gone. ’

‘I guess we’ll be hearing from her kidnapper, then,’ said Pat, hoping she hadn’t been taken by someone intent on hurting her.

‘Yeah, let’s hope it’s someone with a ransom demand,’ said DCI Roberts, ‘and not some sicko who likes to abuse little girls.’

‘Guess we’d better canvas both possibilities until we know for sure,’ said Pat, not wanting to think about that particular outcome.

‘I’ve got Derek looking at who might be a person of interest. Now, get out of my office and get yourself up to speed on the reports. Oh, and there will be a briefing out there,’ said DCI Roberts, waving his right arm in the general direction of the incident room, ‘at four. Best if you work down on the third and turn up for briefings. Don’t want you being distracted, Travers.’

Pat logged on to his computer and opened the link to the case folder on the share drive that DCI Roberts had sent him. He located the sub-folder holding the crime scene files and started reading.

According to the report there was no sign of a forced entry, which suggested to Pat the victim had either known her killer or opened a door to him. It was too early to tell if any of the fingerprints lifted from the house belonged to her killer, that was something he’d have to follow up with the crime scene investigators. One item that caught his attention was the mention of dried drops of a liquid, possibly perspiration, which the investigators had detected on the upholstery of the rear seat of the victim’s car next to where the child’s car seat had been secured.

Pat sat back and thought about what that might tell them. He opened the pathologist’s report and scanned it for the time of death. The initial estimate was late afternoon, somewhere between four and six pm.

Pat returned his attention to the details in the crime scene report. The victim’s car had been parked in the garage. He opened an image of the property taken from the street. It revealed the house was a modern residence with a corrugated iron roof. If its construction was similar to most recently built dwellings, the garage would be a brick veneer structure with minimal insulation. It had been hot on Monday. The daytime temperature had reached thirty seven. Even at Stirling, up in the hills behind the city where the daytime temperatures were often several degrees lower than those recorded in Adelaide, the late afternoon temperature would still have been in the thirties. There was a reasonable chance, thought Pat, that those spots of perspiration belonged to the person who had taken the car seat out of the victim’s car.

Pat knew sweat in itself held no DNA, but he was aware that any skin cells embedded in it certainly would. He also knew that people shed skin cells all the time, and made a note in his notebook to find out what the analysis of those drops of perspiration revealed. It might not identify their killer, unless he was already known to them, but it would provide a way of linking a suspect to the crime scene if they ever had a suspect to take a swab from.

According to the crime scene investigators, the tracks left on the carpet in the house suggested there had been at least two intruders and they’d worn something, probably plastic bags, over their footwear. That detail made Pat think they were dealing with people who had put some thought into what they were doing.

Pat wondered why they’d gone to the trouble of taking clothes and toys belonging to the child they’d abducted. That didn’t read like the behaviour of someone obsessed with his own sexual gratification. It sounded more like the actions of someone intending to hold the child for a period of time and wanting to keep her both quiet and clean. Maybe someone who was a parent himself.

Pat made another note. Maybe they were looking for a couple, since taking things that belonged to the child sounded more like the actions of someone concerned for the child’s welfare, someone like a mother.

He turned his attention to the pathologist’s report. The probable cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma, inflicted when the back of the deceased’s head had connected with the brickwork on the corner of the garden bed along the northern edge of the alfresco dining area at the rear of the house. Bruising on her upper arms and chest, fibres under her fingernails, and scuff marks on the tiles of the floor of the alfresco in the vicinity of the victim’s body, suggested Sarah Taylor had been involved in some sort of tussle before she’d been pushed and fallen onto the edge of the garden bed.

Pat pushed his chair away from his desk. He needed a break before starting on the husband’s statement, and going downstairs for a coffee would give him time to process