My Island Homicide by Catherine Titasey Page B

the attachment. She was an ordinarily pretty woman: pleasant face, proportioned features and artificially blonde hair. She wore a low-necked singlet, which revealed the tattoo of a bat above her left breast. That was novel. Women tended to favour roses, butterflies, dragonflies, birds (especially swans), their fella’s name and their kids’ names for tatts. I liked the bat.
    Shay emailed that Melissa’s alleged lover, Dave Garland, would meet me at the primary school tomorrow at nine. He left TI yesterday morning for a principals’ meeting on Darnley Island and arrived back on TI this morning. ‘He’s chucking up his guts,’ she wrote, ‘and can’t meet today.’
    â€˜You can see Dr Simpson now,’ said Jenny, poking her head around my office door. ‘As in right now. He’s got a patient with a snakebite coming in the chopper from Boigu. Go, go, go.’
    I ran to the hospital, punching into the strong wind. I tried to catch my breath as a nurse led me through to Dr Simpson. I was taken aback by the small office; there was no room for a second chair. Dr Simpson pulled a camping stool from under his desk for me to sit on.
    â€˜Be prepared,’ he said with a salute.
    I explained Melissa’s case and the connection with Franz.
    â€˜Good Lord,’ he said, running his fingers through thin, greying hair. ‘My wife and I escaped urban chaos for the tranquillity of the tropics, but I’ve been working 14-hour days and been on call every second. Now a missing person. What next?’
    â€˜Dare I say a mute who may hold the key to the mystery?’
    â€˜Well, you won’t get anything out of Franz. He has a brain injury resulting from hypoxia during birth.’ I must have looked confused. ‘He didn’t get enough oxygen while his mother was in labour.’
    â€˜How did he come to be admitted to hospital?’
    â€˜His brother-in-law brought him in early yesterday, saying he cut his face when he’d come home at dawn. As expected, I couldn’t engage him, although he did sit quietly while I sutured three deep lacerations to his face, two on his right cheek and one on his left. I kept him in to monitor his behaviour and give the wounds a chance to heal. His sister, who is his registered carer, doesn’t want him home earlier than Monday.’
    I asked if Franz had a history of mental illness and Dr Simpson tapped a file in front of him. ‘There is nothing on file. He’s a remarkably healthy man. He hasn’t been to a doctor for 18 months and that last visit was for an infected foot. He’d trodden on broken glass.’
    â€˜Could someone have cut his face?’
    â€˜Like his sister if she was fed up with caring for him? You’d have to ask a forensic pathologist, but I would expect he’d put up a struggle so he’d have some bruising or scratching. I’ll take you to see him.’
    I followed Dr Simpson down a busy corridor. Nurses raced past. A domestic pushed a trolley with trays of food. A teenage girl with a bandaged head leaned against a wall, laughing to herself as she texted on her phone. Two short dark-skinned women with drawn faces were standing outside the children’s ward. I could tell from their hard, broad facial features they were not Islanders. Dr Simpson saw me taking in the bare feet and gaunt frames, the desperation.
    â€˜They’re New Guineans,’ he said when we were out of earshot. ‘They suffer terribly. There is no health care or welfare system up there, let alone any medical posts. The lucky ones who live on the coast closest to Australia might get to Saibai Island after a week of travelling in a dug-out canoe. If they haven’t bled to death or died from septicaemia in the meantime, they are flown to TI. They suffer from diseases unheard of in Australia today. Terrible.’ He gestured me towards a room.
    Franz sat cross-legged on the bed in the isolation