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Innocence Lost

Garcia Holland, private detective, strode purposefully towards the scene of the crime. His thin, bony

face made him seem ghostly under the street light's yellow beam, and his jet black hair blew aroundhim in the gale. A drunken teen coming along the footpath stumbled backwards in fright, and fell

onto the pavement; Holland stepped over him and continued towards the source of the commotion.

A mansion's high fence rose from the pavement, and the winding driveway was full of stumbling

teens. The party-goers spilled from the gate, desperate to escape the house.

The policeman supervising the chaos spotted Holland.

"Hey chief, McMahon's looking for you. Says he has your girl. Not in good shape though."

Holland nodded coolly.

Police superintendant McMahon was reclining in a brown leather armchair in the corridor when

Holland arrived. McMahon pulled out a pack of Benson's and offered him one, but he refused with adismissive wave of his hand. McMahon shrugged and lit a match.

"You sure it's her?"

"Positive." said McMahon out the side of his mouth, "We found ID on her, and enough coke to make

the sniffer dogs catatonic."

Holland raised one eyebrow in question.

"OD'd, for sure. Toxicology would be a waste of time. Sorry chief."

"I'll poke around, see what I can find."

"Knock yourself out." said McMahon as he blew smoke into the air.

As Holland slid under the police tape, the corridor smoke alarm went off.

* * *

The girl's parents tentatively entered Holland's office, surveying the room like cornered mice

weighing up their ever-narrowing options. Holland's hardest job was usually settling a client; his cold

demeanour and piercing stare was found disconcerting by most. For this reason, Veronica, his

secretary, would guide the guests to their seats and stay the duration of the meeting. Her feminine

presence reassured them and helped the meeting run more smoothly, comparatively speaking.

"Mister Holland? We, uh, were wondering if you do detective work?" stammered the father.

"Like finding missing people?" added the mother.Holland took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

"That's what the sign on the door says, isn't it? Would you like to explain your problem?"

"Start from the beginning, and we'll see what we can do." smiled Veronica.

Holland was familiar with their daughter's story. Lucinda began missing class, coming home late

every night, fighting with her parents. One day, her mother found bundles of $50 bills, stuffed into

the folds of a hoodie. When her mother interrogated her about the origins of the money, she locked

herself in her room and fled that night. With the cash, of course. They had come to him, rather than

the police, because they were worried about what kind of trouble she might be in. School girls don't

just come across bags of hard bills.

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To Holland, the key was in the details: the bundle of bills had been wrapped with rubber bands, not

plastic wrapped like those from a bank; she had been seen often with an older man, usually near her

upmarket inner-city school; she had become nervous and the slightest sound would cause her to

startle.

Holland carefully relaxed back in his chair, absorbing the information. He rarely blinked, keeping his

eyes locked onto each person in turn. Occasionally their recall would falter under the intensity of his

stare, but Veronica would urge them on with a sweet smile. The story finished, and silence

blanketed the room.

Do you have a photo of Lucinda? asked Holland.

The mother pulled a small Polaroid out of her pocket, hesitating to hand it to him, as though giving

away a precious moment with her lost child. A tear slid down her cheek and landed on the photo as

she handed it to Holland. The photo was a snap shot of a beach holiday, the mother with her arm

around her youngest child. In the centre of the photo was a girl, maybe fifteen, looking straight at

the camera, a half smile on her lips. The mother's tear distorted the face, Holland wiped it away withhis sleeve. The picture was faded, but mischief still shone bright in the girls eyes.

* * *

The investigation was stymied at every turn. None of his usual contacts in the force had anything,

and after several days of waiting for "the older man" near Lucinda's school, Holland was still empty-

handed. He tried another tack: the next afternoon he patrolled the surroundings of the school on

foot, walking briskly through the surrounding suburbia. He passed wall after wall guarding well-kept

houses, tree lined driveways, and lawns more manicured than the nails of their owners. As he

completed his round, he saw a girl with a heavy backpack disappear into a building site. Curiosity

and intuition guided him towards the entrance: near the far wall, a man stood with two girls as they

anxiously waited for him to open his suitcase. In their hands, they grasped bank notes with white

knuckles, anxious to be anywhere else. The man, tattooed and sallow, produced a white zip-lock bag

with a flourish. He glanced upwards, and Holland's eyes met his. Time seemed to stop as the man's

eyes widened, then, bowling over the girls, he grabbed his case and fled through the building site.

Holland gave chase, but the man had a hundred metre head start, and Holland lost sight of him

amongst the piles of timber. As he burst through the exit, he saw a white Mitsubishi Lancer leap into

the traffic and speed off. Silently berating himself for being spotted, he ground his teeth and walked

back through the construction site. The bag and the girls were gone.

Holland was still combing the surrounding suburbs for the Mitsubishi Lancer later that night, fuming

at his stupidity when his phone rang.

"Holland - that girl, the one who's photo you showed us? I think we found her."

* * *

Holland stepped inside the perimeter of the crime scene and knelt beside the body. The same eyes

who's piercing vibrancy could be felt through the photo now stared back at him, dilated and lifeless.

Strangely detached, he pulled on some gloves and began to examine the body.

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Bruising on the upper right arm, presumably from a needle. No rigour mortis yet apparent. Clothes;

intact, yet something was out of place. No girl, especially not in this rarefied atmosphere, would go

to a party in track pants

This aroused in Holland a deeper suspicion. He looked closely at the girl's arm. Inside the contusion

there was not one, but three indentations from which the bruise radiated outwards. None of these

coincided with a vein, and all seemed to have been roughly inflicted with the intention of

disappearing within the bruise.

Eyes wide, he turned to the policeman at the door.

"Was a syringe found? With finger prints?" He asked anxiously.

"Yep, we found it next to the body. No prints. It was wiped that unusual?"

Holland didn't answer the junior officer. He turned away and stared at Lucinda.

His back to the junior officer, he carefully chose his words.

"Get McMahon. I think we've got a murder on our hands."

By Mitchell Scott