In the Clearing

by J. P. Pomare

  The radio drops out in a bray of static, and for a moment, while I search for another station, I hear only the smooth heavy purr of the disco. The radio locks on to a frequency. A slow melody comes from the speakers.

  I pass through the town where I stopped for fuel the last time I came to visit Mum. It’s all dark now.

  Soon the music is interrupted by a breaking news bulletin. I turn up the volume and listen closely.

  … In a new development, a blood-stained pyjama top believed to belong to Billy Heywood has been recovered from a fire bunker near his home, along with evidence of what police believe was a significant volume of blood inside the house. Police have also confirmed the pliers found near the child’s tooth did belong to Freya Heywood and her fingerprints were recovered from the tool. Heywood fled her home and police supervision earlier this evening. Police are asking members of the public to remain vigilant and to call triple zero if Ms Heywood is sighted.

  •

  I exhale. It’s happening. I turn into the track leading to Eucalyptus Acres. The stars are out, filling the sky.

  I pull in beside Mum’s unit and switch off the ignition, listening to the engine tick. The breeze outside is shifting the leaves. I lower my window and feel the cool change has come, sweeping through the country. Rain will come next. The lights are off in all the units, including Adrienne’s, which happens to be the furthest from the road, right at the edge of the national park. Any staff on the premises would be over in the office, out of sight behind the trees.

  Like me, Adrienne always had to be close to the river, close to the bush, breathing in the eucalyptus-rich air. I walk to the back step and wait a moment, straining to hear if there’s any sound inside. I can almost hear the trickle of water from here.

  I see something familiar in the darkness. Near the bin, stacks of yellow wattle – the same as the flowers I received. So she has been receiving them too. Or was she sending them? No, impossible. The sender was close enough to be using my IP address. I gaze at her door, a quiet moment of meditation in the dark, before gripping the handle and turning it slowly.

  I hit the lights. The room is lightning-strike white. I see her, Adrienne, sitting on the couch, her back to me. She doesn’t turn to see who’s entered. Is she sleeping?

  ‘Mum,’ I say.

  No movement. The air is still. Too still.

  Something’s not right. I have the feeling of being watched, as though she has eyes peering out through the thin grey hair at the back of her head. I step closer. Blind bravery comes from ignorance of the real threat. I move around the couch to face her. I’ve never seen her so vulnerable: no make-up, her hair faded and wispy. This confirms it. She would never let herself get to this stage, not in her right mind. Eyes closed, chest completely still.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, desperation rising in my voice. I reach out and touch her shoulder, shake her gently. ‘Mum?’

  Her blue eyes snap open like the eyes of a porcelain doll. She is staring straight at me.

  ‘Amy,’ she says. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  I search her face for any sign of deceit, any sharpness or cognisance. ‘Mum, someone took Billy. Someone stole him away.’

  ‘He took the boy.’

  ‘Who?’

  She closes her eyes.

  ‘Mum, who took him? Who took Billy?’

  ‘Billy?’ she says, shaking her head as if waking from a trance. Suddenly she looks uncertain, her eyes peering around the room before settling on my face. ‘Amy,’ she says. ‘What are you doing here? It’s late.’

  I lean closer, holding her shoulders. ‘You said he took Billy. Who do you mean?’

  She moves her hands in the air, making small birdlike movements. ‘Who took who?’

  That lucid moment has gone.

  ‘Who took my son?’ I demand. ‘Billy – you remember Billy?’ ‘Oh yes. How is Billy?’

  I shake her. ‘Think, Mum. Who took him?’

  ‘Ouch. Stop it.’

  My fingers are gripping too tightly. She winces. You old witch. This is your fault. You did this to us.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she says plaintively.

  That strange tingling washes over my skin: the feeling that she can see inside my head.

  I draw a breath, step back. ‘Mum, I need your help.’

  ‘Leave me alone now. Just like you left me here before. After everything I did for you children, you abandon me.’ You taught me how to act, how to conceal Amy and show the world Freya.

  ‘I didn’t abandon you, Mum. I didn’t mean to.’

  She won’t look at me. ‘Leave me to sleep now.’ She puts a palm to her chest as if her lungs require the weight of her hand to compress.

  ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. I just need to get to bed.’

  Again I notice the artwork on the walls, the Olsen, the Whitely, the Heywood. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of art adorning an otherwise bland, unremarkable unit. It strikes me as a waste, how can someone who can barely recognise herself in the mirror recognise the great art around her? I look up at one of the paintings. It’s mine. It’s a painting of the Clearing with the black square at the centre and all those flowers blooming at the edges. The flowers.

  ‘Look at me, Mum.’

  She keeps her face averted.

  ‘Mum where did those flowers come from? Did someone send them?’

  ‘Flowers?’ Finally she raises her eyes to meet mine. ‘What flowers?’

  I stride across the room, out the door and pick up one of the bouquets. Returning to her side, I hold it out. ‘These flowers. Where did they come from?’

  She squints at them, puzzled, then her face clears. ‘Oh, those flowers. I don’t know. They just turn up. Someone puts them out there.’

  ‘Is it Adam? Think, Mum. Did he take Billy?’

  She smiles then, her eyes settling on mine. ‘You are the killer, Amy. Not Adam.’

  It hits me hard, right in the stomach. Is this the real Adrienne speaking? Has she been acting all along? I hate that this woman has held something over me for so long.

  ‘Where are the photos?’ I say. ‘Where are they?’

  She gives a tiny, almost imperceptible smile.

  ‘You’re a fraud. That’s all you’ve ever been,’ I say.

  Is there hurt in her eyes?

  ‘I can’t help you, Amy. You turned your back on me.’

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I look down, the message is from Corazzo.

  Just saw the news. They’re after you. They’ll be watching main roads and checking in with your family. Turn off GPS on phone or get rid of it.

  Family. I know what he is saying. The first place someone flees to. The police could be on their way here right now. I rush out to the Disco, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I floor it, the engine growling, the headlights blasting through the darkness. I swing out onto the road, heading away from the city. I’ll take the long way. Corazzo lives west of the city. It’s a couple of hours from here but he’s the only ally I’ve got left.

  Thirty-four hours missing

  A dead wallaby lies near the centre line. I swerve to avoid it. I wind down my window and hurl my phone as far as I can into the dry shrub without slowing – Corazzo is right, it’s the easiest way of getting caught. It won’t be easy to find my way to the western side of the city from here without navigation, and I only have half a tank of fuel. I’ll just have to figure it out as I go.

  I’ll need a lawyer, but then again there’s not much any lawyer can do from this position. It’s like calling in a chess master when you’re three moves away from checkmate. Whoever has set me up has me comprehensively screwed. My last lawyer kept me out of prison, but I lost my son. Not exactly a fair trade-off. What’s the best I could hope for this time? A decade in prison? I glance down at the speedo, making sure I’m not over the limit. My number plate, make and model have no doubt been broadcast to the police and probably the public.
I need to avoid being seen, which is easier now, on a Sunday night at 10 pm, than it will be tomorrow morning.

  I keep the radio tuned to one of the news stations as I drive away from the city, up deep into the bones of the country. I pass through towns where shops are boarded up. Towns that aren’t towns but names on maps, now populated only by farmers.

  I could drive all the way to Jonas’s place and camp out there until he gets back, but I doubt I could find my way there. I don’t have enough petrol, and police will likely check there too. Corazzo is my only option and time is ticking away to find my son. It still hurts, that phantom pain of missing Billy. Even when I forget, for half a second, I still feel sick and scared, then I remember.

  There comes a point when missing becomes missing, presumed dead. Whether it’s years or months or days, the moment always comes: the moment when all the evidence suggests a murder has occurred; when volumes of blood are found and possible weapons; when the search for a missing person becomes a homicide investigation. I know this because I have keenly watched every news story about every disappearance over the past two decades. I know how perpetrators trip up and are caught. I know that nine times out of ten when someone disappears and is presumed murdered, a family member is responsible. Whoever took Billy also knows this. They’ve done their research and set the trap perfectly. I could almost laugh – and then I do.

  •

  I keep driving through the night. Eventually I have circled around the city and start heading south towards the western suburbs. I know I can’t park near Corazzo’s house in the Disco, but there are plenty of industrial estates nearby.

  I cruise along back streets, looking for somewhere inconspicuous to leave the car. Finally, on the other side of the train line, I find what I’m looking for: a semi-derelict warehouse abutting a vacant lot. I park up close in the shadow of the warehouse, and hurry down the street in the direction of the train station. I walk through the underpass, and stride down the main street. A man passes me, walking the other way. There’s a moment of eye contact, then I look away. After I have passed I hear his footsteps stop. I walk faster. When I turn back a few seconds later I see him standing still, staring down at the phone in his hand. He could be ordering an Uber, I reason, or messaging his mum, or checking Google Maps to make sure he’s walking the right way to his girlfriend’s house … or he could be looking at a news site for a photo of me. I’m not prepared to stick around to see which it is. I pick up my pace and turn down the first side street.

  I’m not far from Corazzo’s now. Twenty minutes of striding through the cool of the night, keeping my head down, turning away when I see headlights. Avoiding anything that resembles a CCTV camera.

  At last I arrive at Corazzo’s. It’s a small squat weatherboard house. Red door, wild garden. Sweating in my jeans and dusty blouse, I raise my hand and knock three times, hard enough to wake the occupant but not so hard that a neighbouring insomniac might look out to the street.

  I listen to the night, hear the distant sound of trucks on the motorway, the creak of a swing set. No sound comes from inside. He’s not home. Even as I think it the door swings open and a hand snatches my shoulder, jerking me inside.

  He holds me there, near the door. His face half in shadow, half illuminated by the streetlight coming through the window.

  ‘Freya, what the hell are you thinking coming here?’ He looks over my shoulder, peering out at the street, then closes the door. He turns back to me, eyes full of accusation.

  ‘I-I’ve got nowhere else to go,’ I say.

  He points towards the door to the kitchen and follows me as I walk through. The place looks as if it’s still haunted by Corazzo’s ex-wife. Floral table cloth. Framed cross-stitch on the walls along with a photo of Corazzo as a new recruit to the police, standing stiff and proud, with much darker hair, a thinner moustache and fuller face. He drags two stools over to the island bench and turns the kettle on.

  The clock on the stove says it’s 2:14 in the morning.

  ‘You made me look like a fool, Freya,’ he says, pulling a pair of cups from a cupboard. ‘The Blackmarsh case was the pinnacle of my career.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We’ll discuss it in the morning.’

  He places a teabag in each of the cups and fills them up with water.

  ‘For now, I want you to tell me everything you know about Billy’s disappearance. Run me through the past twenty-four hours, no bullshit, just facts.’

  I glance up from my cup and see him rubbing the stubble on his chin. He’s stressed about Blackmarsh, I realise. I’ve brought the past into his home.

  I recite the events of the days, exactly as they unfolded. When I get to the part where I saw Adrienne, he raises his hand for me to stop.

  ‘You visited her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it wasn’t the first time?’

  ‘No.’

  He closes his eyes as if in pain. ‘Okay, tell me honestly: how often do you see her?’

  ‘Once a week,’ I say.

  He looks surprised at that – and hurt.

  ‘I see. And you still believe she’s a reincarnation of Jesus Christ? You still believe in all the Blackmarsh stuff?’

  I take a sip of my tea to think. I need him on my side, I need to deliver this with conviction. ‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘She’s a delusional old woman. I don’t believe any of that stuff. I go because if she realised how much I despised her she would ruin my life.’

  ‘You swear this is the truth?’ he asks, his eyes intent on me. ‘You promise?’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘Alright,’ he says, draining his cup and standing up. ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘I parked it near an old warehouse on the other side of the station.’

  ‘Good. Let’s make a plan in the morning. You’re still not off the hook.’ As he walks away towards his bedroom he says over his shoulder, ‘The bed is made up in the spare room.’

  I shed my clothes and climb into the bed, more for something to do than out of any expectation of sleep. But the moment I close my eyes it’s as if I’ve pulled the power cord of my brain, and the black tide of sleep rushes in and overwhelms me.

  Forty-four hours missing

  Morning arrives abruptly, light seeping in through a gap in the curtains. I don’t know where I am at first, and then with a pang I remember. I’m at Corazzo’s house. Billy is still missing.

  I can smell bacon, eggs, grease, and I sit up, my body feeling weary despite the sleep. I throw on my clothes and move to the door, pulling it open gently.

  I find Corazzo sitting in a chair in the living room watching the road. He has a shotgun laid across his lap.

  ‘Morning,’ I say.

  He turns to me. ‘She wakes.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Almost time for breakfast.’

  He stands and leans the gun by the doorframe. A moment later he returns holding a plate heaped with eggs, crispy bacon, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. A thick wedge of toast sits beneath it all. The plate is warm, as if it’s been sitting in the oven, waiting for me.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ I say.

  ‘No worries. You need your strength today. You need to eat.’

  I think about what he said last night. About his reputation, the case that made his career. I decide not to broach the subject yet.

  ‘TV?’ he says, but he’s already aiming the remote before I answer.

  The house is cool and air-conditioned. He flicks through the channels, landing for a moment on a morning show before he quickly moves on.

  ‘Go back,’ I say, lowering my fork. ‘What was that?’

  He changes the channel. I see a series of photographs of Wayne and Aspen. They’re leaving a hospital. A banner screams Nine Exclusive. Then the camera zooms in on his face. He has a black eye, a scratch beside his nose. He’s shaved and looks so much younger now than he had by the river the day before.


  Why did you track your Mum down, Aspen? What did she say to you?

  He doesn’t look at the camera when he responds.

  I just wanted to meet her. I don’t know. I wanted to ask her why she hurt me, but she wasn’t what I expected.

  It cuts back to the studio. A woman, blow-waved, lips shining with gloss, is wearing her best how awful expression. Beside her sits a man in a blue shirt who might have just stepped out of a teeth-whitening commercial, and next to him I recognise a goateed shock jock: Des Holder, the most self-righteous man on radio.

  The woman tut-tuts.

  It’s appalling, isn’t it? The entire story. Des Holder joins us now. Des, what do these latest photos mean for Freya Heywood?

  Latest photos? Pinpricks of sweat break out all over me. She hasn’t, I think, she can’t have. Images appear on the screen. My heart plummets as I recognise the scene, the grainy images. The photos are from the Clearing. The photos are of me: one in which I’m holding Asha’s head under water, another where I’m helping to dig a hole next to a pixelated body. There’s a manic grin on my face. It’s Adrienne. These photos belong to her.

  Des Holder is shaking his head sorrowfully.

  Well, anyone can see that this girl at the age of fifteen helped to torture and murder Sara McFetridge. It shows us that the police involved in this case wore blinkers when it came to all the perpetrators of the crimes that were committed at Blackmarsh. Henrik Masters might have been the mastermind – but he didn’t act alone.

  Corazzo clears his throat. On screen the other speaker chips in.

  Des is exactly right, but there is no precedent for this in Australia. A historical crime committed by a minor who was essentially raised in a cult. I can’t see how she can be viewed as culpable.

  Des Holder interrupts.