Private Sydney (Private 12)

I knew she would never forgive us for what we were doing.

The lid gave way and a putrid smell seeped out.

Darlene was wearing surgical gloves and a surgical mask and handed me the same as I looked down at the body. The face was badly bloated, more decomposed. A section of cheek was missing.

The body was shrouded in a white sheet. No one had bothered to dress it. Darlene cut through the sheet with scissors before ripping it apart. She was looking for anything to suggest another cause of death.

In his left side, irregular chunks of flesh were missing in small sections. On the upper left arm was a straight-edged mark.

‘See this wound?’ Darlene said. ‘The others look like they were caused by fish or trauma. This one’s a surgical excision.’

Johnny snapped images with his phone.

Loud banging on the wooden doors stopped us momentarily.

Mary was still on guard at the back doors. ‘Craig, what do you want to do?’

The police had arrived and over a loudspeaker we could hear them demanding we evacuate immediately.

Darlene scraped a small piece of skin and dropped it into a half-sized tube. She quickly shoved it under her shirt at the back.

I closed the coffin lid and we all stepped back.

‘We need to do what they say,’ I instructed.

Mary opened the doors and Eliza wheeled through first. I quickly followed to explain about Jack’s call.

‘Why?’ Eliza said to me through clenched teeth.

Two police in protective gear were feet away. I had to explain later. There was one thing I needed to know.

‘I know what you’re thinking. But did your father have a tattoo or sk

in lesion removed from his left arm? Any kind of minor operation?’

She wheeled herself away, Mary close behind. I waited until they were clear.

‘There was no bomb scare,’ I shouted, hands raised in the air. ‘I made it up and acted alone.’

Darlene and Johnny followed, passing Eliza in her chair.

‘Craig, you were right,’ Darlene whispered.

Right now that wasn’t much consolation. We’d unleashed a shitstorm I had no way of controlling.

Chapter 111

ELIZA TRIED TO fathom what had just taken place. Had Craig completely lost his mind? Lying about a bomb to break into the coffin at the service attended by the few people who still had any respect for her father.

Numb, she watched bulbs flash as police handcuffed Craig and ushered him into the back of a marked car.

A team of heavily padded police entered the building.

Johnny was clearly shaken by what they had done. He squatted on his ankles as police questioned him. Darlene stood defiantly, casting sympathetic looks towards Eliza.

None of this made sense. These people had been so kind until now. The last thing she could do for her father was to make sure the service was dignified. He had died alone, in a violent explosion. Everything he’d worked for, his innovations and dedication to helping others was instantly erased. More than that, he had been publicly vilified, now physically desecrated.

A man who never drank would be remembered for dying in a drunken stupor trying to avoid charges for stealing from the charity organisation he’d dedicated his life to.