by Renee Kira
Ben became distant. He left the room each time I injected myself in the stomach, morning and night. He only came to the initial appointments, never to the scans or the collections. He felt we were failing by needing a fertility clinic at all. Later, he would claim it was me who blocked him out.
But then a transfer stuck, and everything was all right. For a little while.
If I’d didn’t lose that pregnancy, I’d have a toddler of my own by now. It was an early miscarriage. I never found out if it was a boy or girl. Someone told me at the time that it’s not so bad when you lose them early. It’s less grief. I think that’s bullshit.
After the third round of IVF, I could tell it was fruitless. My single pregnancy was almost close to impossible, statistically. My heart agreed with my brain, I would never experience another. So I quit. And eventually, Ben quit our whole relationship.
Ben was supposed to move to Cape Cross with me. We were going to fill the house I had inherited with a family. That never happened. For a time, I was lost in the hazy unhappiness of the break up, and somewhere in there I quit my job. I decided to move into the house anyway.
I have a routine. My coffee and my morning run. I try to spend the rest of the time deciding what my life should look like, now I know I can’t have a family. I have no idea. I can’t picture my own future anymore.
When I’m not thinking about Veronica, I’m worrying about my father. From what he’s telling me, the police haven’t bothered him again. My mother has nothing to say about it. And she always has an opinion on everything.
The reality is, I’m the best person to help them right now. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but I’ve got contacts. I know enough about the system to protect them. I also know that my father is right when he says innocent people go to prison sometimes.
Maya sent a text to ask if I’m all right. It should be the other way around, she’s the one who lost a friend. She was always kind, even when we were at school. An open person, nice to everyone no matter who you were. Nicer than you need to be.
After I get to the eleventh page of Google results, there’s nothing left. I get an article about a Valerie Hayes who plays netball in New Zealand. Then another about Vic Hayes, who is fundraising for cancer. I’ve reached the bottom of my research barrel.
The last small detail I scrape is that she was born in the bush nursing hospital. Cape Cross has never been big enough for its own hospital. We only have the local doctor who goes home at five pm. If you get into trouble after that, you’ll have to go to the real hospital in Waringal, a forty-minute drive away.
Years ago, there was a bush nursing hospital. It was closed after a nurse misdiagnosed a septic patient. They died two hours after being sent home. They were under-funded and understaffed.
Ever since, the hospital building has sat deserted. The call from locals to reopen has never gone quiet. No one wants to travel to Waringal, especially if you are in an ambulance. But there’s not enough people and not enough money.
A loud bang brings me to my senses. I turn around to see my small filing cabinet has fallen over. The draw is unlocked and has slid open. The weight has toppled the whole thing. It was a cheap cabinet I picked up at an office supply store for under a hundred dollars. Serves me right that it’s broken already.
Getting out of my seat, I tip the cabinet upright and slide the draw back in. Thankfully, none of the paperwork had fallen out. There’s no clicking sound, so I fetch the key from my bedroom and come back and lock it. It must be faulty. There’s nothing interesting in there. Mostly tax documents I need to keep for five years and some x-rays from when I sprained my ankle last year. Things that I can’t scan and put in Dropbox.
I’ve been on my computer for hours and I could use a break. I head towards my bedroom, stretching my arms out behind me as I walk.
I’m looking out the front window into the darkness when my phone rings. God, I hate the sound of a ringing phone. After years of it ringing at me all day at work, I’ve started leaving it on silent. Not today, though.
With a sigh, I walk towards the back of the house where the phone rests on the kitchen bench. Private number. I don’t answer. It’s late, even for telemarketers.
Back at my laptop, the long list of Google search results is still up. It’s frustrating. I can’t sit around and see my Dad accused of something he didn’t do. Just a rumour is enough to ruin you in this town. It’s as good as the decision of a jury.
What other avenue did I have to explore? Even though I never met Veronica, there are a crazy amount of connections between us. We know the same people. We have friends in common, like Maya. We even have an ex-boyfriend in common in Liam. In a lot of ways, we have led parallel lives. It feels like wherever I turn, I find another link between us.
Part of me thinks I should let it go. Another part urges me on, it’s telling me to push further. There’s something else to find. I need to follow those links between us.
Liam Goddard is as good a place to start as any.
10
Isobel
The best way to punctuate a bad day is with a glass of wine, but that’s not the reason I am at the pub. I’ve heard that Liam works here. It’s a leap for someone that was a medical researcher not so long ago, but he probably has his reasons.
It’s Saturday night, and it’s busy, but I want to ask him about Veronica. After Maya, he’s my next best connection to her. I can get a better picture of who might have wanted to hurt her.
There’s two pubs in Cape Cross. The bottom pub is named because it’s at the low end of Main Street. It’s family friendly, they serve decent counter meals. A short drive away, up on the cliffs in a quieter area is the top pub. They don’t serve anything more complicated than potato chips, but there’s always cold beer. It’s sticky and grungy, but the tourists stay away.
It’s an old pub, two storeys tall and painted white, with the year it was built in brass letters above the front door. If you can get a table at the back, you can watch the surf roll in.
I stop at the far end of the car park, an old habit after finding my car scratched one too many times. It’s dark, and there’s nothing to see, but I can hear the crash of waves far below.
A white four-wheel-drive pulls into the car park as I hit lock on my remote. There’s empty spots closer, but it stops right next to my car. I can’t see through the dark-tinted windows. Whoever it is leaves the engine on.
When I walk in, the bright warm room is a stark contrast to the cool and quiet outside. Like I predicted, the place is busy and alive with a hum of chatter. There’s no table service, so there’s a solid crowd of people around the bar waiting for a drink.
‘You’re not a beer girl, if memory serves me correctly.’ A strong, low voice speaks to me from behind. Looking over my shoulder, I see Liam Goddard. His chest is almost touching my shoulder.
‘Hi,’ I say. I go to turn around, but he places his hand on the small of my back, pushing me towards the main bar.
‘Can’t be blocking an exit. Safety issue.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I was just grabbing a quick drink on the way home.’
‘Come up to the bar then.’
I walk towards the bar and sit down, pulling out the stool next to me for him.
If I said Liam never crossed my mind, I’d be lying. But if I dwell on it, I’d rather not feel like I did with him again. There were a lot of good times, but also some bad ones.
He was perfect for my seventeen-year-old heart. I was slightly reserved, he was inclined towards extroversion; on paper we were perfect. He was smart and a hard worker to boot.
Reality was different. Things would be fine for weeks, then he’d forget something important and not show up. Sometimes he’d disappear for days then turn up at my door at three am. Perhaps he was so tired from holding everything together that he fell apart.
In my twenties, I still thought I had the power to change people. Each time he let me down, I took it more personally.
I confronted him eve
ntually. He took me on a holiday to Bali to make it up to me, then turned up at the airport with no money. I ended up paying for everything. We ended things not long after. I don’t want a rollercoaster ride in a partner. I want stability. Or at least predictability.
I’m doing the maths in my head and it must be four or five years since I’ve seen him. When was the last time? It was a bar here in Cape Cross, I think it was my birthday. I’d come home to visit my parents for the weekend. We talked a while, but I saw him leave with another woman.
I wait for him to sit on the stool beside me, but he walks straight past me. Is he brushing me off? He steps sideways, opens a hinged gate and slips behind the bar.
‘You’re on the clock?’ I ask.
He nods.
‘How long have you been working here?’
‘For two years. I manage the place.’
Liam is not someone I would peg as a hospitality worker. He’s got at least two degrees, and the last time I saw him he was using the cowpox virus to destroy cancer cells. Now he’s pulling beers. It didn’t add up.
‘What do you drink these days?’ he asks.
‘Any kind of red wine.’
‘Well, we have a few, but all of them are terrible. I can offer you a decent beer though.’
It’s a beer kind of town. ‘I’ll stick with bad wine.’
Liam pulls two pint glasses from under the bar and starts filling them up with the beer that’s on tap. He pushes one in front of me. Did he not hear me?
‘I really don’t drink beer.’
‘I know, but I really can’t serve you the wine we keep in stock. Just on principle. I’ve argued for better, but I’ve been unsuccessful so far.’
Age suited Liam. He wore himself better; he seemed calm. Up close, I could see the lines in the corners of his eyes now. His sandy coloured hair was still a little long, his eyes always the colour of a winter ocean.
‘How long have you been back in Cape Cross?’ I ask him.
He picks up his glass and takes a sip. Unlike me, he had been a beer drinker back in the day and it seemed like he still was. ‘Two years. I got the job here right away.’
‘You never told me.’
‘Izzy, you stopped returning my calls years ago. Why would I tell you I’m around? Plus, you stayed in Melbourne.’
My eyes snap up at the sounds of that name. Only Liam had ever called me Izzy and hearing it brought on a fuzzy nostalgia. It was such a different name. Isobel was sensible and accomplished. Izzy was… someone else.
I took a sip of the beer. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t for me.
I sighed. ‘Sorry.’
He shrugged. He took a sip of his own beer.
‘So you’re back in town?’
‘Yeah,’ I answer. ‘I’ve been here for two months now.’
‘In the old house?’
‘I renovated it.’
He nods. ‘It’s a great location.’
‘So, you can drink on this job?’ I ask, motioning to the beer.
‘No. But the owner’s never around. Anyway, I’m making an exception for you.’
He smiles, and like a reflex, I smile back. It’s easy to remember why I’d liked him so much. But that was teenage love, and I was only a kid. That kind of thing rarely translates well to an adult world.
I change gears. I’m here for a reason. ‘I’m sorry about Veronica.’
He nods. ‘Thanks. I saw you there. At the funeral.’
‘I never met her.’
‘You found her though,’ he says.
It must no longer be a secret that I was the one to find the body. I let out a huff of air. ‘Yeah.’
Liam looks downwards, taking his eyes away from me.
‘It’s a horrible thing to happen,’ I say. ‘I know you… were friends.’
Liam’s eyes flick up and meet mine. It’s like he’s searching for something. I’m not sure what he thinks he will find. It felt the same when Maya asked me to tell her what I saw on that beach.
I snip it in the bud. ‘There’s nothing I can tell you don’t already know.’
He sighs, looks at the timber of the bar and taps his fingers a few times. ‘I was thinking about her a lot. I Googled strangulation. That’s what I heard happened. It wouldn’t have been over quickly.’
‘I can’t even imagine.’
I wait, but he says nothing else.
‘Did you see her a lot?’ I tiptoe around a direct question about their relationship. Liam is grieving, like Maya had been.
‘No.’ He speaks quietly. ‘She stopped talking to me four years ago.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
He nods. ‘She met someone new. The word is she’d been happy of late.’
‘Who?’ I ask.
He shakes his head for no. ‘I say we stopped talking… she ghosted me. One hundred percent. Everything I heard about her was second-hand.’
So much for Liam having answers about Veronica. Shifting on the bar stool a little, I hesitate before I ask the next question. ‘Did she have enemies?’
‘Enemies?’ He raises his eyebrows.
‘Maybe something to do with work? A deal gone bad?’ If I wasn’t a lawyer, I’d be wincing as I waited for his response. I’d had practise with difficult questions. A poker face was a skill worth learning.
‘She was competitive at work. After she had Max, she became very driven.’
‘With anyone in particular?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘Did the police say something?’
‘No… they only asked me basic stuff. There wasn’t much I could offer them.’
His glass is empty. Mine is three quarters full.
‘They called my Dad in,’ I say.
‘Really? What on Earth would they want your Dad for?’
‘There was a van up on the cliffs around the time she was last seen. It looked like his.’
Liam narrows his eyes in disbelief. ‘He’d be near the water all the time. He was probably fishing.’
‘No. No fishing there. There are too many rocks. Plus, he only fishes from the boat these days. It had to be a similar vehicle. Or a bad memory.’
‘They’ve been doing the rounds, pulling in family and friends. Between you and me, they’ve haven’t got a clue.’
‘Really?’ Maybe my Dad had nothing to worry about.
‘But don’t repeat that, I’ve got a mate on the force who’s working the case.’
‘How did you know that I found her? The police said that they wouldn’t release that information.’
He looks at me like the answer is obvious. ‘It’s Cape Cross. Everyone knows.’
Everyone always knows everything around here. But I have a feeling there is something I’m missing.
‘We had the same birthdate. Veronica and me.’
Liam nods without skipping a beat. ‘Yeah.’
‘You knew that, too? God, what else are the police telling people?’
‘Izzy, I know your birthday. The police didn’t tell me.’
Of course Liam knows my birthday. Just like he would know Veronica’s. ‘You don’t think that’s weird?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s a coincidence. A September birthdate is the most common.’
‘Really?’
‘Everyone is on holidays nine months earlier. Christmas, New Year’s Eve…’ He trails off with a smirk.
I roll my eyes.
‘Seriously though, there’s something else you should know about Veronica.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
He leans forward over the timber bar, our faces only inches apart. ‘She was asking people about you an awful lot.’
11
Maya
I’m no fan of therapists. They ask probing questions and give nothing in return. They poke at your scars and resurrect old pain. That’s not something I need. It’s not my first time in this chair, I’ve been here before.
‘Do you think getting back to yo
ur routine will help you?’ asks Lucy.
Her hair is sandy blonde and she’s under thirty, which is young for a therapist. Like she’s compensating, she’s wearing thick-framed glasses and neutral-coloured clothes.
‘I have two boys. I don’t have a choice. They need to eat and sleep and go to school.’
I don’t need answers or epiphanies. I need to get my life back in order. Not for me, but for Jacob and Noah.
Lucy nods, her expression giving nothing away. There’s no outward judgement in here. That’s something that drives me crazy. In fact, this whole scenario is driving me nuts. David suggested it, but now I’m regretting coming here at all.
‘I can’t change what happened. But I need to do the school run.’
‘It sounds like you are still blaming yourself for Veronica’s death.’
Yep, we went over that in the first session. Lucy says my feelings of guilt are exaggerating my grief. And she’s insisting that I accept that I can’t change what happened to Veronica. That it isn’t my fault. There’s a thought I can’t shake; without me she might not have been there.
Lucy waits, but I don’t speak.
‘What about your husband?’
Is she asking if I blame David for Veronica’s death? ‘What about him?’
‘Has he been a good support?’
‘Yes,’ I answer. ‘He’s trying to keep his hours down at work, helping a little with the boys.’
‘He works a lot of overtime?’
‘When he can get it,’ I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
‘So you’re left to do a lot with the boys.’
‘Yes. I don’t mind. I haven’t worked since they were born.’ I’d always planned to go back. After studying graphic design, I’d built a steady flow of work, most of it remote. While I had intended to go back before I got the chance, Dad got sick.
‘It’s a lot for one person.’
I nod. But she can tell that I don’t agree.
‘You don’t think so?’ Lucy asks.
