Dr. Leigh admits his relationship with Sullivan and explains his whereabouts

Dr. Leigh admits his relationship with Sullivan and explains his whereabouts through a police interview that turns a suspicious trip into an account of a concealed romance and a false statement. The disclosure gives Greg Raco and Aaron Falk an explanation for Jamie Sullivan’s presence in an alley on the afternoon of the Hadler family murders, while exposing how long-kept secrecy has diverted the investigation and delayed the truth.

The clue and the interview

The interview follows a specific lead. After Aaron Falk watches Scott Whitlam leave, his phone receives a message from Greg Raco asking why Jamie Sullivan had been in the alley. The next morning, Falk and Raco arrive at the station to find Dr. Leigh waiting outside. He has brought notes on the Hadlers and initially assumes that the meeting concerns progress in the case. Raco instead asks where he was on the afternoon of February 22, the day of the murders.

Dr. Leigh’s surprise gives way to unease as Raco presses him about whether anyone can confirm his account and whether he was alone in the office flat. The questions are pointed, but the interview does not begin with a direct accusation. Dr. Leigh asks whether he should call his lawyer; Raco advises that doing so could be prudent. The doctor recoils, recognizing that the questions concern more than routine details of his schedule.

The narrative places the interview beside a reconstruction of Sullivan’s movements that afternoon. After Luke Hadler’s truck disappears, Sullivan sends a text and receives a reply within two minutes. He drives toward town, turns into the alley behind the shops, and parks in a garage that is empty and unlocked for him. He lowers the roller door to conceal his vehicle, then goes to an unmarked door beside the office’s supplies entrance. Dr. Leigh lets him in, and they kiss once the door is shut. These details give physical context to the question Raco has asked: the concealed visit was real, and Sullivan was not alone.

The relationship disclosed

Dr. Leigh eventually confirms that he was with Jamie Sullivan in the flat. He says they have been in a romantic relationship for about eighteen months and have kept it quiet. The relationship began after Sullivan started bringing his grandmother to see the doctor more often as her condition worsened. Sullivan was struggling on his own and needed support and someone to talk to; their connection developed from there. Dr. Leigh had already suspected that Sullivan might be gay, but he describes Kiewarra as a place where that could make a person wary of being open.

His account makes clear that the secrecy was not simply a matter of keeping a private relationship private. Dr. Leigh says that people in Kiewarra might hesitate to have a gay doctor treat themselves or their children, or to sit beside him at The Fleece pub. He tells Falk that he has seen firsthand what happens when someone stands out in the town. His explanation places the couple’s silence within the social climate they feared, without making that fear an excuse for the false account they gave investigators.

Their account of February 22

Dr. Leigh supplies a sequence of events for the afternoon Raco is investigating. He says he was at the office until four o’clock, then took a break. Sullivan texted him, and Dr. Leigh invited him over. Their meeting was, in the doctor’s description, a fairly usual arrangement: Sullivan arrived, they talked and had a cold drink, and then went to bed. The disclosure therefore locates Sullivan with Dr. Leigh in the office flat rather than where his earlier account had led the police to believe he was.

The visit ended when the flat’s emergency phone rang. While Sullivan was drying off in the bathroom, Dr. Leigh answered the call and then told him he had to go because there had been a shooting accident. Sullivan dressed and drove home. He arrived to find fire trucks outside; a firefighter told him that his grandmother was safe but that the kitchen wall had been damaged. This sequence helps explain how the couple’s afternoon was interrupted and why Sullivan went back to the farm, but it does not erase the investigators’ central problem: the two men had withheld information about where he had been.

Delay and investigative consequences

Dr. Leigh says the silence continued after the visit. Once Falk and Raco began asking questions at Sullivan’s home, Sullivan called the doctor in fear and admitted that he had been caught off guard and had lied about his whereabouts. Dr. Leigh says there was no excuse for the lie. He explains that both men had panicked; they did not speak up immediately, and as time passed, they no longer knew how to correct the situation. In his account, concealment had become habitual enough to make disclosure harder even when the investigation had become urgent.

Raco responds by stressing what the delay has cost: the police have spent hours pursuing Sullivan’s story while three people lie dead, including a six-year-old child. He also points to the immediate human consequence: Sullivan was left exposed to suspicion and was badly injured the previous night. Dr. Leigh accepts responsibility and says that, if he could return to the beginning, he would act differently. He distinguishes that regret from shame about being gay, while acknowledging that Sullivan is still coming to terms with being open about himself.

The interview changes the meaning of the alley evidence without settling the Hadler case. Sullivan’s concealed trip was a visit to Dr. Leigh, and the doctor’s account places them together during the relevant afternoon; their fear of prejudice helps explain why they hid the relationship. But their delay has wasted investigative time and damaged confidence in Sullivan’s statements. After sending Dr. Leigh on his way, Falk follows him out of the station to ask about Mal Deacon’s dementia, carrying the inquiry from the newly explained alibi toward another unresolved question.