‘Fucking tourists,’ he spat.
The car behind was a Benz. There was superficial damage to the front of the car, but nothing a little trust-fund money wouldn’t fix. The driver appeared to be in his early twenties, a sprinkling of peach fuzz on his chin. He leaned forward over the wheel, surveyed the damage, then turned to his girlfriend in the passenger seat and mouthed the word, oops.
‘He could have hurt you,’ Ray said again.
‘I’m okay, Ray.’
‘He would have hurt the baby.’
‘Ray, take a breath, don’t do anything—’
But it was too late. He had already stepped out of the Datsun, hands balled into fists, red-faced, head thrown forward. He left the driver’s-side door wide open and marched over to the Benz. The driver stepped out, a half-smile on his face, and Abby felt a wave of unease. With growing tension, she swivelled in her seat to watch.
Abby couldn’t make out what the driver was saying over the noise of the street, but she could hear Ray, because he was screaming.
‘You fucking idiot,’ he shouted. ‘If you’re going to just come to my island and drive around like a fucking lunatic…’
Abby swung open the passenger door and waddled out, one hand on the top of the Datsun, the other under her belly. She got out just in time to see the driver roll his eyes.
‘Dude,’ he said. ‘Relax. We were going about two k’s an hour. I’ll pay for the—’
‘I don’t give a shit how fast we were going or what you’ll pay for. My wife is pregnant, you rich fucking prick.’
The kid on the BMX, who Ray had stopped to let across the street, was sitting on his bike watching, wide-eyed and excited. A horde of beer-swilling young people stopped to watch the commotion, as did a young couple pushing their baby in a pram. People started to honk from the line of cars that had backed up behind them.
‘Look,’ said the driver of the Benz, throwing his girlfriend a nervous glance. She was still in the car, and when Abby looked at her, she locked the door. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, mate, it was an accident. Let’s just exchange details and get out of everyone’s way. There’s no reason this has to ruin our night.’
‘Ray,’ Abby called. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
‘Get back in the car, Ab.’
‘But—’
‘I said get back in the fucking car,’ he craned his neck to snap the words off at her, then turned back to the driver. Ray wasn’t there anymore. The Switch had been thrown.
‘Jesus, man,’ the driver said. ‘Take it easy on your girl. It’s not her fault her husband is a psycho.’
Oh no, Abby thought.
‘What did you call me?’
There were more honks from the line of cars behind them; more people gathered to watch the chaos that was building in the middle of Bay Street.
‘Take it easy, Ray,’ Abby said. ‘Please, just get back in the car.’
‘Do you want me to pay for the damages or not?’ the young driver said.
‘You think you can just pay your way out of anything, don’t you?’
‘Whatever, dude. You’re upsetting your girl and scaring mine, so I’m just going to leave.’
‘You’re not going anywhere until I let you.’
The driver took his hands from his pockets. He looked nervous now, shifting from one foot to the other.
‘People like you don’t learn,’ Ray said. ‘Your parents pay your way out of trouble until you’re old enough to do it yourself. But you need to learn. You could have hurt my wife.’
‘I know,’ the man said, taking a step backwards, palms up. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise to me. Apologise to my wife.’
Before the man could speak again, Ray grabbed his arm and dragged him over to Abby. His girlfriend screamed hysterically from inside the car.
Shouts of protest erupted around them.
‘Take it easy, he’s just a kid!’
‘Let him go, someone call the cops!’
‘Are you fucking crazy, mate? He’s half your size!’
Ray couldn’t seem to hear any of them. He was somewhere beyond them, beyond reason. The driver of the Benz flailed beside him. He wasn’t fighting back, thank God.
The driver turned to Abby. He was sobbing. Fear, deep and resonating and traumatic, was etched on his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he moaned. ‘I’m … I’m sorry.’
The shouts around them grew louder. She grabbed hold of Ray’s free hand, squeezed it hard, dug her fingernails into his skin, and said, ‘Think about what you’re doing.’
Ray swung his head around to face her. His face was twisted with the same maniacal grimace she’d see again seventeen years later, as he stood over a fallen gum tree and told her to back the fuck off.
‘Babe,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘You need to stop.’
Somehow, amid the shouts from the crowd and the honking of built-up traffic, Ray heard her. Slowly, his jaw relaxed, focus returned to his eyes and the Switch was reset. He came back to her.
Ray let the man go. They didn’t exchange any insurance details, but there wasn’t much damage done to the Datsun anyway. She doubted the driver of the Benz would ever rear-end anyone again.
Ray and Abby drove home without another word.
Later, as they lay on top of the covers of their bed, watching the ceiling fan turn, Ray told her he was sorry.
In the dull light of the bedside lamp, he had looked lost and childish. More scared, even, than the man in the street had looked.
‘What was that?’ Abby asked. ‘I’ve never seen you lose control like that before.’
He blamed his outburst on the stress of being a new father. The false labour had shaken him. He was tired, that was all.
‘Promise me nothing like that will ever happen again,’ she had told him.
‘Ab, you don’t need to worry about me.’
‘You scared the shit out of me tonight,’ she said. ‘So promise.’
‘I promise,’ he said.
She kissed him softly on the mouth, then rolled onto her side, partly because it was the only way she could get comfortable, and partly because she didn’t want to look at her husband anymore that night.
She lay awake for a long time, long after she turned
out the lights. She stood in the dark garage, her hand on the pull-string switch, and stared in jarring, frightened wonder as the luminol lit up like phosphorescence on the wall of an underwater cave. The chemical, activated by the blood entangled in the fibres of Ray’s clothing, glowed blue.
There were splatters on the front of the shirt, more on the boots, and a concentrated puddle on the left leg of the cargo trousers.
Abby felt untethered.
As the blue glow of the luminol faded and the darkness of the garage enveloped her once more, she pictured the man who was driving the Benz that night. He was sobbing, wide-eyed. He was sorry. So sorry. And so was she.
What now? she thought. What the fuck now?
21
THE WIDOW
Annabel Stemple’s son lived on a little-travelled road called Sunset Strip, that cut between Neef Steet and Old Harbour Road. When Kate first started coming to Belport a decade ago, it had been one of the most exclusive areas on the island. Since then, most of the houses that lined the street had been sold off and were in various stages of subdivision. Now it was a world of half-built homes, chain-link fences and big squares of dead land.
Kate followed her GPS to a small house set back from the road across a wild yard shaggy with weeds, dead leaves and fallen branches. There were a dozen paint-chipped gnomes scattered over the lawn, most of them overturned or half swallowed up by nature. The house appeared to be on a slight lean, with grass sprouting from the gutters and one window boarded up with pallet slats.
For a moment she questioned her decision to come here alone, but it would no doubt be a waste of time telling the cops what she’d learned from Chatveer, and she couldn�
�t stand the idea of Eckman talking down to her again. As for Fisher, he’d go in like a sledgehammer and make everything worse. But the real reason was that she wanted to discover John’s secrets – whatever they were – before anyone else. If she knew the truth, she might be able to protect Mia from it; despite what John had told her, there might still be some monsters better left hidden. There were two cars parked in the driveway: one, an ancient blue commodore, was plastered with bumper stickers. One read, Want to see god? Then keep tailgating me! Another, Vaccines cause adults. Then there were such classics as My other car is a Porsche, Honk if you’re horny and Caution: I brake for nobody. In the middle of it all was a Southern Cross decal. The second car was mounted on cinder blocks and missing both its rear tyres.
She parked the Lexus across the street and started towards the house. She walked through the front gate and crossed the front yard briskly – if she lost momentum she might chicken out – and knocked loudly on the front door.
Ten seconds passed, then twenty. Nobody came to the door, so she knocked again, louder this time.
‘Jesus, fuck,’ called a voice from inside. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’
The front door popped open and a man appeared, his features dark and distorted behind a tattered old screen door.
‘Yeah?’ the man asked.
‘Are you Marcus Stemple?’ Kate asked.
The man yawned, scratching his balls. ‘What are you selling? Insurance, charity or religion?’
‘I’m not selling anything,’ she said, keeping her tone light. ‘My name is Kate Keddie. You knew my husband, John. He was a physician at Trinity Health Centre. He looked after your mother.’
He opened the screen door and stepped out onto the verandah to get a look at Kate. He was a slim man, somewhere in his late twenties, with long limbs connecting to a solid, compact torso, like a daddy-long-legs spider. His face was vampire-pale, his hair black and greasy. His eyes were deeply set and etched with worry lines.
He let the screen door fall shut behind him. It slammed loudly, startling Kate.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘John came to Belport a couple of weeks ago,’ she said. ‘Then, four days ago, he was killed.’
Marcus belched, then nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard something about that. It’s got everyone in town on their toes. What’s it got to do with me?’
Kate took David Stemple’s obituary from the pocket of her jeans and handed it to him. Marcus read it, expressionless. He then folded the obituary and handed it back.
‘I’ve never seen this before,’ he said. ‘It’s twenty-three years old. Where’d you get it?’
‘I found it among John’s things.’
‘Why would he have it?’
‘I was hoping you might be able to help answer that.’
Marcus shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand and looked into the street. Kate’s Lexus stood out against the grey landscape like a shiny sore thumb. ‘Did you come out here by yourself?’
It was an unsettling question, but Kate nodded.
‘I suppose you can come inside,’ he said. ‘But I don’t get many visitors so I don’t have any coffee or tea or scones or anything.’
‘That’s fine,’ Kate said.
Marcus Stemple’s home was sparse and felt almost transient. There were no pets and no plants. The only items of furniture were a wooden desk and chair, an armchair by the window that the Salvation Army would reject, and a coffee table covered with empty beer bottles, ash trays and an extravagant glass bong. The walls were the colour of burned mustard, and a musty, second-hand smell hovered in the air.
He collapsed into the armchair. Its cushions exhaled dust. Kate sat in the stiff wooden chair beside the desk, on which stood a grimy Royal Epoch typewriter.
‘Are you a writer?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t use that old bastard if I was,’ Marcus said. ‘That was my dad’s. Most of this stuff was.’
‘How long have you lived in Belport?’
‘Oh, I don’t live here. If I lived here, I’d have to kill myself. I’m just passing through. About two or three years ago, I got into a little trouble.’ He placed a pair of mocking air quotes around the words a little trouble. ‘I lost my job because my boss was an arsehole. Ran out of money. And since my mother refused to set foot in this place but also refused to sell it, I figured the old shithole was as good a place as any to figure things out.’
Two or three years is a long time to be passing through a place, Kate thought.
‘I was sorry to hear about your mother,’ she said.
‘Did you know her?’
‘No, but from what I hear she and John were close. I heard about what happened, how she wrote John into her will.’
Marcus licked his lips. ‘From the look of the Lexus across the street, I’d say it’s not the first time he put the squeeze on one of his patients. To swoop in right at the end of someone’s life like that and manipulate them out of their hard-earned – that’s a pretty fucked-up side business. You think that’s why he got topped?’
Kate flinched, and worse, Marcus noticed.
‘John wasn’t like that,’ she said. ‘If your mother offered him anything it was because she wanted to.’
He stood quickly, and for a moment Kate thought he was lunging towards her. But then he moved past her and into the adjoining kitchen. An unwashed, sweaty smell went with him: a wave of what Mia would describe as stank.
The kitchen was cluttered and nicotine-stained. The sink had been removed, revealing a rectangular cavity full of rusty pipes and cobwebs. An ancient refrigerator hummed like a drunken busker.
He grabbed one of the beers, came back into the living room and fell into the armchair again. He fixed her with a look that seemed to say, I’m a busy man, so either get on with it or get out.
‘Did you ever meet John?’ Kate asked.
‘Sure.’
‘When?’
Marcus shrugged, drank and thought it over. ‘About two weeks ago.’
‘Two weeks ago? Are you sure?’
‘Uh huh. The doc sat right where you’re sitting now.’
Kate gripped the arms of the wooden chair like a nervous flyer, as if she might still be able to pick up the vibrations made when John sat in it. ‘He came here, to the house? Do … do the police know that?’
‘Why would they?’ Marcus asked, then belched.
‘They were trying to create a time line, that’s all. Trying to figure out John’s movements on the island before he…’
‘Nobody asked me anything,’ he said. ‘And if you’re thinking what I’d probably be thinking, no. I had nothing to do with what happened to him. Wishing someone was dead is a long way from making it happen.’
‘Oh, no, I wasn’t—’
‘Yeah, you were.’
‘Why did John come here?’ she asked.
‘Never quite figured that out,’ Marcus said. ‘He was either here to help me or blow me. Or maybe both.’
‘What do you mean?’
He chuckled to himself. ‘He came on pretty strong, is what I’m saying. He came around here looking to make amends. He apologised – and, look, I never wanted to get the guy fired, I just didn’t like the idea of him taking advantage of my mum, and that’s what I told him. As far as I was concerned, that should have been that.’
‘But it wasn’t?’
He picked at the label of his beer. ‘He tried to pay me back the money Mum had left him. He said I needed it more than him. I’m not some fucking charity case, which is also what I told him. But the guy wouldn’t let up. He was … full-on.’
‘How do you mean?’ Kate asked.
‘He made out that I needed the money, but it was more like he needed to give it to me. He was all fucked up about Mum’s death. More than me, even. He was obsessed. And he was looking for somewhere new to send that obsession.’
‘Maybe he felt guilty about Annabel writing him into her will,’ Kate offered.
‘He was guilty about something, that’s for sure,’ he said. ‘Trust me, people like us can smell our own.’
He leaned back in the armchair to look down the narrow hallway, out through the screen door and over Sunset Strip.
‘Did you and John talk about anything else?’ she asked.
Marcus lifted the longneck to his lips and sucked like a baby lamb. He swallowed hard, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘He had a lot of questions about my dad.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘He wanted to know what I remembered about him and about when he died. I was only five when it happened, so all I really remember is my mum crying a lot, and us going to stay with my aunty Rita in Mollymook and her annoying fucking yappy dog.’
‘Why was John so interested in your dad?’ Kate asked. ‘You’d have to ask him that. There’s a ouija board around here somewhere, if you’d like to try.’
‘How did your dad die?’
Marcus paused mid-swig, set the bottle down on the coffee table, and glared at her. ‘You don’t know?’
‘All I heard was it was sudden,’ she said.
‘Sudden,’ he echoed. ‘Yeah. You could say that.’
22
THE WIFE
Abby listened to the rain drum against the roof of the Volvo, working up the nerve to go inside. She was parked on Old Harbour Road, opposite Deepwater Living, Bobbi’s apartment building.
She took a few deep breaths, forced herself out of the car and started toward the building. Six or seven ravens perched on the chain-link fence that separated the apartment block from an empty block of land next door. They watched her. One of them squawked at her in a tone that sounded personal.
She found Bobbi’s apartment number on the intercom list. 2-D. Someone had added ykes in black texta, making it 2-Dykes. A chill ran through her. It was tempting to think of Belport as a progressive little microcosm, separate from the mainland and immune to its prejudices, but then something like this came along and reminded her such thoughts were naive. She thought about what went on inside the old ferry terminal and didn’t suppose a place like that would need to exist if Belport was as accepting as she thought it was.
The Wife and the Widow Page 15
