The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

‘This one does.’

  Charlie drove; Rhys gazed out at the unrolling suburbs; Fay’s eyes were closed, her head tilted back.

  A sheet of newsprint slapped against the windscreen and was gone. ‘Hot wind. Nasty wind,’ Rhys said.

  Charlie glanced at the dashboard, reading off the outside temperature. Thirty-four degrees. He could see gum trees bending, scrappy leaves and packets flying, an old man’s straw hat bowling along. A real grit-in-the-eyes day, scented by inland dust and smoke. Far-off bushfire smoke.

  As if he’d read Charlie’s mind, Rhys said, ‘We watched a lot of CNN on the ship. The bushfires. Unimaginable.’

  ‘You worried about your place?’ Charlie said. Hot northerlies racing up the Warrandyte gullies, wrapping around the eucalypts.

  It was as if Rhys hadn’t heard him. ‘Koalas with their paws all burnt up. Heartbreaking.’

  ‘I know. It’s been the main news topic for weeks, here. We’re all obsessed with it.’

  Again eerie dense skies were in Charlie’s head. Evacuees crowding the state’s south-eastern towns and beaches—dazed, huddling, clasping pets and bewildered children. Stuffed suitcases; crammed trailers; cars stalled bumper to bumper; the sooty firefighters and the false-faced, lip-service politicians.

  ‘You ever think,’ Rhys said, ‘the world’s running down?’

  Exactly what Anna had said. ‘Constantly,’ Charlie replied.

  Rhys grunted and they rode in silence and came to the tight corkscrewing roads dense with waiting houses, oily trees waiting in the tossing wind.

  42

  MID-MORNING NOW, RHYS in bed, the doctor due late afternoon. Fay was imploring Charlie to stay for a while longer.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to put your head down, too?’ he asked. ‘Unpack, at least?’

  ‘Charlie, I’m dying for a good chat. Is that all right?’

  She was at the kitchen sink, chin aimed at him stubbornly, her northern-hemisphere layers swapped for shorts and a T-shirt. A thin woman who had aged in the past weeks. Pale, pleased to be home but, Charlie realised, in dread of the next stages of life.

  ‘Just for half an hour or so.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, settling into a kitchen chair. Watching her prepare the coffee, he understood that she’d spent the last weeks in suspension, nothing secure, cabin walls closing in. The love of her life ill, fretful and then beyond her reach in a Tokyo hospital. She’d been strong for him. No one had been strong for her.

  Charlie got to his feet, crossed the room and stood beside her at the sink, his arm around her, hoping that if he possessed any fortitude, a little of it would flow into her.

  It seemed to. Everything that was tight in her began to ease and then, strangely, he felt her warmth flow into him, and he thought unaccountably of his mother.

  But Fay has been my mother all these years, he thought. Will continue to be, in her reserved way.

  They returned to the table wordlessly, but presently she said what was on her mind. ‘What do the police intend, exactly?’

  ‘They want to talk to him, for a start. Everything’s changed, now there’s a body. Bodies.’

  ‘Will they arrest him?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Depends on what new evidence they have, I guess.’

  ‘It would have to be evidence tied directly to the bodies, surely? All the rest, his movements on the day and whatnot, that was all checked off twenty years ago.’

  Charlie looked past Fay’s head to the window and the trees fretting in the wind and recalled Fran Bekker’s dismissal of the original investigation. ‘New evidence, new witnesses; I have no idea.’

  ‘And you’re sure about the lawyer?’

  He nodded. ‘She’ll do right by him.’

  Glancing towards the door to the corridor, as if Rhys stood there listening, Fay lowered her voice. ‘I shouldn’t let him talk to the police unless she’s with him, right?’

  ‘Ideally.’

  ‘But what if they just turn up out of the blue? He could get cranky—you know what he’s like—and say the wrong thing or rub them up the wrong way.’

  ‘I’ll coach him.’

  ‘Will you? He’s…He’s vague sometimes. He could say anything.’

  Charlie went very still. ‘Fay, what’s he said?’

  The coffeepot was burbling. She turned her head to it, wanting a lifeline, a distraction, a detour sign, so Charlie asked again: ‘What’s he told you?’

  She got to her feet, poured the coffee into two mugs, sat again. Rotated her mug, gathering her thoughts. ‘He told me he was at your mum’s house the day she went missing.’

  Since Liam first told him that, Charlie hadn’t known what to do with it. It didn’t signify guilt, but it looked suspicious—the fact, and the failure to disclose it—and the police would seize upon it. Unless they already knew.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Liam saw him.’

  ‘At her house?’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Near there. On the road.’

  ‘Will he tell the police?’

  ‘I don’t know. He says not.’

  Fay touched her throat. It indicated doubt, and they sat with their thoughts.

  She said, ‘Liam and I did a couple of Skype sessions. I think he’s stopped despising me.’

  ‘Hope so.’

  ‘Of course, Ryan probably put him up to it. Ryan’s good for him, don’t you think?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that Liam still thinks Rhys killed your mum. That’s always going to be the elephant in the room.’

  Charlie nodded. There was nothing to add.

  ‘Is there a reason you think he’s innocent and Liam doesn’t?’

  ‘Old sibling dynamics.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish.’

  Charlie felt ungracious. ‘Okay, Liam took against Dad for two reasons: he thinks he hurt Mum, and he thinks Dad and his mates were old-school gay bashers. His words.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. They hit him?’

  ‘No. But they weren’t very kind to him, and he thinks Dad took their side, not his.’

  ‘Your dad’s no homophobe, and he’d never put anyone ahead of you boys. He loves you both. He’s proud of you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There must be more to it.’

  She was probably right. Liam was older, he’d seen more; he’d have understood more back then. ‘Maybe.’

  She changed tack. ‘I asked Rhys why he went to your mother’s place that day. He said there was a stack of table linen he thought she should have, so he took it around and left it on her veranda.’

  Charlie recalled Senior Constable McGuire’s reaction when he’d asked if his mother’s remains had been wrapped in anything. That glint in her eyes.

  He focused on Fay again. She was watching him, her head cocked. ‘But how do you verify intent?’

  They were silent, contemplating imponderables. Eventually Charlie told her what he’d been up to: Lambert, the Wagoners, Quigley, Billy Saul’s mother.

  ‘Long shots, really.’ He shook his head. ‘I was so sure Lambert was somehow involved.’

  ‘I know what you mean. Creepy. I met him once.’

  Charlie was astonished. ‘You did? Where? How?’

  She wriggled uncomfortably. ‘It was early on. Your mum was at work, and I went down to tell your dad it wasn’t right to go on seeing each other if he wasn’t properly separated or divorced, and Lambert was just leaving their place as I arrived. Something about security—installing lights and better door locks.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Into another silence Fay said, ‘Did I ever tell you about my husband?’

  Charlie blinked. ‘She said, changing the subject.’

  Fay grinned. ‘Bear with me.’

  ‘You’ve mentioned him a couple of times. He died?’

  ‘His name was Andy and he died of a heart attack. He was only forty-six. It ran in his family.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She sh
rugged. ‘Years ago now. He was a good sort. It hit me hard. What I’m trying to say is, your dad saved my life.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Not till a few years later, mind you. Along with all the other shitty aspects of widowhood, I was awfully shy and obliging. A little mouse. After Andy died I just drifted, not really looking for anyone, but somehow or other I found myself engaged to a man I worked with at the time. Looking back, I think I was trying to get away from my mother and my sisters as much as anything.’

  She grinned. Charlie returned it, grateful for the nugget.

  ‘Anyway, this man was ten years older, and he idolised me,’ Fay said. Her hands went to her head. ‘He’d brush my hair. Do my ironing. Tea in bed every morning. And I had these complicated lace-up boots that he insisted on doing up or taking off.’

  ‘So you felt what?’ Charlie said. ‘Smothered?’

  She closed her eyes briefly. ‘It seemed like everyone around me had energy and opinions and ideas, while I was wearing a set of clothes made for someone else. I was just living…adequately. Blamelessly. That’s about all you could say. I wasn’t stupid, I knew people didn’t really like Michael, but at the same time they didn’t dislike him. One day I told him I didn’t love him, and he said, “Don’t be silly, of course you do.”’

  She snorted—as much a yelp of dismay as laughter—and looked crookedly at Charlie. ‘We hardly ever had sex. I wasn’t that interested, but the thing is it didn’t seem to bother him. He’d give me this little smile that was so understanding it made me want to scream and run for the hills.’

  The upcoming wedding must have seemed like an ending to her life, Charlie thought—with nothing beyond it. ‘Takes all kinds,’ he said weakly, as the wind rattled the window above the sink.

  ‘It took your father, that’s what it took,’ Fay said emphatically. ‘He saved me.’

  Charlie reached across and took her hand. ‘I’m glad. You’re family, you know.’

  Her hand, inert for a moment, twitched like a creature in his as she removed it. She gave him a pat. Settled both hands in her lap. She wasn’t finished.

  ‘Thank you for saying that; it means a lot. But it wasn’t smooth sailing. I told Rhys that I needed to be able to hold my head up. We didn’t have anything to do with each other for six months. I told him he had to sort himself out first.’

  And clearly he’d done that, Charlie thought. Now the pair of them are indissoluble. He thought back five years, to when Jess had walked out. If he was honest with himself, he’d been a sketchy husband. Distracted, undemonstrative, his footsteps upon the earth jarring, not harmonious. Consumed with finding out what had happened to his mother, not nurturing his own family. He had been unmoored for a time; five years without love.

  Then Anna. It didn’t matter that she coincided with his career going down the gurgler, he felt more supple now, felt some grace and power within. That’s what love did.

  ‘I’m glad it worked out for you both,’ he said.

  ‘Me too. But your mother’s disappearance changed him, you know. I noticed a difference in him. He stopped being such a larrikin, for a start. Became…I don’t know, harder to reach. And he wanted to put it all behind him—his marriage and his old life at the beach.’

  ‘Does he ever talk about it?’

  She shook her head and Charlie knew there was more, but before he could ask, she was patting his wrist absently. ‘Charlie, we’d love to come to the memorial service, but if you have any doubts…’

  Next Monday, Balinoe Hall, Mrs Ehrlich to give the main eulogy. ‘Come,’ Charlie said.

  The doorbell rang and he exchanged a glance with Fay. She looked frightened, diminished. She mouthed the word ‘Police?’ at him—as if, throughout the whole conversation, she’d been waiting.

  43

  ‘THE DYNAMIC DUO,’ Charlie said, getting in first.

  Bekker was there on the doorstep, McGuire glowering behind her. ‘A courtesy call. May we come in?’

  ‘You can’t be serious. He’s only just got home.’

  Bekker raised a forestalling hand. ‘I promise we’ll be quick.’

  ‘Quick courtesy call,’ scoffed Charlie, propping his forearm against the edge of the open door. ‘I’m police, remember?’

  ‘Yeah.’ McGuire smirked. ‘Memories, eh?’

  Bekker made a semblance of shushing her. ‘We do need to talk to him. Things to clear up.’

  McGuire beamed at Charlie. ‘He may have a lawyer present.’

  The hot wind continued to thrash the hills and trees. Heat was entering the house, so Charlie stepped out onto the veranda, shutting the door behind him. ‘When?’

  ‘You want to do this out here?’ said McGuire.

  ‘When?’ repeated Charlie.

  ‘Ideally, in the next few days,’ Bekker said.

  ‘He’s not well. He caught that virus when he was away.’

  Bekker and McGuire stiffened—a kind of polite recoil, as if Charlie was a virus carrier. Full of smiling malice, he advanced on them. One step, another. ‘He was hospitalised, in fact. He’s still shaky.’

  Bekker gathered herself. ‘Is he still infectious?’

  ‘No. He was cleared to come home. But he’s suffering after-effects. Plus jetlag. He’s not up to being grilled by you lot.’

  ‘Grilled…A talk,’ Bekker said.

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Under caution.’

  ‘When will be a good time?’

  ‘When his doctor gives the all-clear.’

  ‘Next week?’

  ‘Not my call,’ Charlie said. He knew they would keep at him and eventually wear him down. Wear Rhys and Fay down. So he said, ‘We’re having a memorial service on Monday. Maybe you can talk to him later in the week.’

  Bekker gave an abbreviated nod. Then she cocked her head at him. ‘Meanwhile, Charlie, what did I tell you about sticking your nose in?’

  He waited.

  ‘I said to quit doing it, if I recall.’

  McGuire muscled in. ‘You’ve been representing yourself as a police officer on active duty rather than as a fuck-up on suspension.’

  ‘Paid suspension,’ Charlie said.

  ‘That makes a difference? People are complaining.’

  ‘What people?’

  Bekker said, ‘Just knock it off, Detective Senior Constable Deravin.’

  ‘All I’ve been doing is gathering information,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Obstructing…’

  ‘Helping,’ Charlie said. He pasted on a smile calculated to inflame. ‘You’ve heard the expression “lawfully audacious”?’

  McGuire flared up; Bekker grew weary. ‘Come,’ she said, and ushered her sidekick down the path to their unmarked car.

  Charlie returned to the kitchen, mists of foreboding closing around him. Rhys was at the table, a fresh cup of tea steaming between his stringy hands. He looked pinched—but decisive and wry. ‘That who I think it was?’

  ‘Homicide. I did warn you.’

  Rhys chanced a sour grin at Fay, who was standing with her rear propped against the bench under the window. She looked drawn, troubled. She was at odds with him, thought Charlie.

  ‘What did they want?’

  Charlie sat opposite his father. ‘Quote: “quick courtesy call.”’

  Saw his old man’s nostrils flare. ‘Now? Barely home five minutes?’

  ‘I told them to piss off. But they want a formal interview sometime next week, depending on how you feel.’

  Fay came to sit, her unblinking silence put to one side. ‘I think we should meet with the lawyer as soon as possible.’

  Rhys opened his mouth to protest; subsided when Fay touched his forearm. In a show of contrition he said, ‘Happy to talk to her.’

  ‘More than talk, Dad,’ Charlie said. ‘Make sure you don’t speak to the police unless and until she’s in the room with you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Fay said, ‘Anyone would think you hadn’t been a policeman all your life. And all I’ve
heard from you for twenty years is how the justice system works and fails to work. Listen to your son.’

  Rhys scowled. Charlie leaned in. ‘This is serious, Dad. If I’m not mistaken, they intend to question you under caution. You need representation—and not from some Association hack. Have a sit-down with Jenna as soon as possible, get her up to speed. She’ll try and find out what they’re basing their case on—if they have one—and maybe she can delay the committal hearing—if that’s where they’re headed.’

  ‘A lot of “ifs” in that sentence, son.’

  ‘Grow up. Mum’s no longer a person who disappeared in suspicious circumstances twenty years ago. She was murdered. During divorce proceedings. Also, they think the original investigation was scrappy, and, reading between the lines, I think they’ve turned up new evidence. Probably applied some of the forensic techniques not invented back then.’

  There was a pause until Rhys said, slowly: ‘Obviously they’ll find my traces in her car. We both drove it.’

  Charlie went a little cold, wondering why his father would focus on the car and not on an alibi that might clear his name once and for all. ‘Dad, put your thinking cap on.’

  Fay asked a question that must have been simmering inside her. Carefully not looking at Rhys, she said, ‘Why would they have searched the house again? What could they hope to find after all this time?’

  There was a snap in her husband’s voice: ‘Not you, too.’

  ‘Oh for god’s sake,’ she flared back at him. ‘Did I say I thought they’d find something? This is serious, Rhys. I have lived with you for twenty years. I love you. I trust you. But this is serious. This is our life. I need to know. You need to know.’

  ‘Know if I killed Rose?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Isn’t it? You sure you haven’t been harbouring a suspicion all this time?’

  ‘Stop it.’ Charlie thumped the table with a little rattle of crockery. ‘Fay, to answer your question, they have to cover bases, it’s a murder investigation now.’

  ‘Looking for a huge pool of blood that seeped into the floorboards and got carpeted over,’ she said disparagingly—if ill-advisedly, considering her husband’s mood.

  But Rhys scooted his chair across and wrapped an arm around her and made her look at him. ‘Sweetheart.’