Finding the Bones by NATALIE CONYER sees homicide detective Jackie Rose given a cold and very public case – the disappearance from almost forty years ago. This investigation will turn her life upside down, and Jackie must decide how far she will go to navigate the fine line between love, betrayal, loyalty, and corruption.

Read on for an extract.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Destroy your beliefs or destroy your family? How could anyone decide something like that? And yet there was no choice.

Sydney, 1980s: Belle Fitzgerald, young, rich and spirited, lives in Kings Cross, the city’s bohemian heart. When she learns of plans to demolish her street and evict its residents, she commits to fighting the development, even though this brings her up against the Cross’s crime lords and their servants, the notoriously corrupt local cops. Recklessly, dangerously, against her better judgment, she embarks on a passionate affair with one of those cops, Sergeant Stanton Rose.

Then Belle goes missing. Her disappearance becomes one of the nation’s great mysteries.

Sydney, today: Stanton Rose, retired, is an Australian icon, celebrated for his undercover work in the Cross. Jackie Rose, his daughter, has followed in his footsteps. She’s a homicide detective, uncompromising and ambitious.

When Belle Fitzgerald’s bones are discovered, Jackie is given the very cold and very public case. This will be her moment to shine. But what she uncovers threatens to turn her life – and the lives of those closest to her – upside down.

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EXTRACT

In 1987, a year before her murder, Belle Fitzgerald sat with Narelle Docherty on the front step of Narelle’s terrace, chatting and smoking in the sun. Narelle was telling Belle about the Battle for Victoria Street. Belle had heard the story before. She hadn’t told Narelle why she wanted to hear it again, but Narelle was more than happy to oblige. She’d lived through it, after all.

‘That bastard Theeman thought he’d like to knock all our houses down and build high-rise towers, toffs only. It was the view, and how close we were to the city.’ She waved a hand towards the harbour, as if Belle couldn’t see for herself.

‘Didn’t care what happened to us,’ Narelle went on, ‘the renters and the little people.’ She spat on the pavement to show what she thought of that. ‘He bought up some houses over there –’ she pointed down the road as if they were in Victoria Street right now ‘– and reckoned he could just kick us out and buy the rest. Had everyone in his pocket, pollies as well. He paid thugs to threaten us, to smash our houses and beat the shit out of the ones who wouldn’t go. The cops came too, but Theeman got them for free.’

Narelle took a drag of her cigarette, carefully pinched the tip between thumb and forefinger and stowed the remains in a skirt pocket. ‘We showed him, but.’

‘Have the pack,’ said Belle, handing it over.

‘Ta, love. As I was saying, we showed the nasty buggers. You know what? They even kidnapped one poor sod and locked him in a motel for a week. Would you credit it?’ She gave a sodden chuckle, ran out of air. Wheezed in more, coughed. ‘In the end, the unions came to the party. Slapped green bans on the place and Theeman went away, tail between his legs.’ She placed a hand on Belle’s knee. ‘Gotta go, love. Pension day.’ She tried to struggle to her feet, but fell back. Belle rose and helped her up. Narelle grinned, patted Belle’s arm, and shuffled back into her house.

Belle walked next door to number 250, her own terrace. She leaned her back against the brick wall and lifted her face to the autumn sun. She was thinking of Narelle’s story and at the same time of the picture she made standing there, what someone passing would see when they looked at her. She adjusted her pose, bent one leg and rested the sole of her foot against the wall. She had good legs, she knew that. She hoped someone would see her because she liked being looked at. Why shouldn’t she? She was young and beautiful and she knew it. She despised those women who pretended they didn’t know how attractive they were just so they could force other people to tell them.

She finished her cigarette, stubbed it out on the wall and thought again about Victoria Street. She walked along it daily, but yesterday she’d made a point of examining each building carefully.

Fifteen years after the famous campaign and the street looked sad.

The residents stopped the developer, sure, but afterwards nobody had money to fix the damage left behind, and some of the houses were still boarded up, broken roofs and kicked-in doors allowed to rot. Others languished behind chicken-wire fences, also a legacy of the Battle, as the locals called it.

Her own street, Catherine Street, a couple of streets away, had fared better. Most of the houses had been converted into low-rent flats, but their Victorian bones remained. It wouldn’t take much to restore them and Belle was surprised the area hadn’t been marked for gentrification sooner, because Catherine Street was even better positioned than Victoria Street. It overlooked both harbour and city and was a ten-minute walk from Hyde Park.

Belle fell in love with Catherine Street, and the neighbourhood, the first time she saw it. The closest thing, she felt, to Montmartre in Sydney. Run-down, sure, but beautiful and romantic and alive. Most of all, she knew that wanting to live here would drive her father mad. She was right, and at first he refused.

‘You said! You promised you’d buy me a place.’ She could hear the petulance in her voice.

‘I did. But the Cross is a slum. The whole area, full of strip clubs and prostitutes and drug addicts and the scum of the earth.’

Which was precisely the attraction. Belle hungered for it. The Cross – Kings Cross – was as far away from home as she could get, far from leafy Turramurra and the private all-girls school and the tasteful homes and tennis courts of her childhood.

She pleaded. ‘Just have a look. There’s something for sale.’ Belle watched as her father, Huntley Adair, stood in his suit, arms folded, and surveyed Catherine Street speculatively. She knew he’d give her what she wanted in the end. He’d never been able to refuse her. They’d had a rocky past, but he’d always come around. He accused her of being headstrong. Just like him, she retorted. He’d coughed up plenty of money to get rid of the boy she’d married in England, although she thought Huntley would disown her when she insisted on keeping her married name. But no matter how much her father complained, he’d promised, and they were alike in that both kept their promises.

In the end he hadn’t argued as much as she’d expected. He’d agreed to buy the draughty, poky terrace for her, and she’d been installed for two years now. She was part of the neighbourhood. She knew everyone and they knew her, the black-haired girl from Catherine Street.

Belle saw it was late. She gathered papers and books from her dining table and shoved them into the black leather shoulder bag that never left her side. She locked the front door and headed off to East Sydney Tech, where she’d scored a part-time teaching job. The Dip. Ed. forced on her by her parents had come in useful after all.

She walked up Catherine Street and turned into William, past a couple of working girls looking the worse for wear. They waved and she waved back but her thoughts were still far away, with Narelle and the battle the residents of Victoria Street had had with the developers. Because she knew something Narelle did not. She knew they were up for the same war again. And this time, unless Belle could do something about it, the bad guys would win.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalie Conyer was born and grew up in Cape Town, but has lived in Sydney for many years.

Natalie’s debut novel, Present Tense, won the 2020 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. It was shortlisted for the Davitt Awards in both debut and general sections, and voted one of the books of the year by The Australian.Its sequel, Shadow City, was released in September 2024.

Natalie’s short stories have won many prizes in the annual Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Competition. They have featured in anthologies and a collection, The Book Club & Other Stories, was published in 2024

Visit Natalie Conyer’s website here.