The Fourth Season

by Dorothy Johnston

  Kat’s eyes were already drooping when Peter told her he’d seen the man again, speaking in a monotone that reminded me of Brook’s. Kat went pale and still for a moment, but beyond that was too tired to react.

  As soon as his sister was asleep, Peter walked around the house, closing all the curtains so that not a crack of night showed through, and checking all the locks.

  I came up behind him, taking care to make an ordinary noise.

  When Peter turned, wild-eyed, to face me, I could see him thinking that from now on he would have to watch his step, every single one. He was wondering if he’d done the right thing in telling his sister about the man in the red car, but more afraid that, however hard he watched, his vigilance would not be enough.

  Kat woke in the middle of the night and climbed, shivering, into bed between Ivan and me. Her skin was clammy, as though she’d been sweating in a cold room for hours. I cradled her in my arms, anger rising from my diaphragm, hitting me square behind the teeth.

  . . .

  Sunday was cold, the rain harder and wind-driven. Noises in the kitchen told me Peter was already up. I separated myself from Kat, who grunted and scrubbed at her cheek with a closed fist, but did not open her eyes.

  Peter was making toast. He looked up at me and frowned, his mouth sharp-edged.

  ‘What are we going to do, Mum?’ he asked, not as though he wanted me to answer, but as though the words were forced out of him.

  ‘We’re going to find that man,’ I said.

  Peter nodded. He said he knew where to start—back at the soccer oval.

  Kat slept for another hour and was heavy-eyed and dreamy after that, yawning over her cereal, her eyes, huge, opaque, following her brother as he moved around the kitchen. Ivan hadn’t stirred, and, after some debate with myself, I decided not to wake him.

  A night’s rain had turned the muddy patches in the centre of the soccer field to a series of small lakes. We parked where Peter had seen the car, and walked up and down under dripping trees, Peter with the hood of his jacket pulled forward so that it covered half his face. I understood his desire to return to the spot, but suspected that the carpark had nothing to tell us.

  ‘Right here, Mum,’ Peter said.

  Kat stopped and stared at the ground, her face very pale beneath her curls, while Peter stood to attention next to her, arms by his sides like a half-grown and bedraggled soldier.

  ‘Where were you when you saw him?’ I asked gently.

  Peter lifted his head and pointed to a spot perhaps thirty-five metres in the direction of the club house. His breath caught, reliving those few seconds when fear had inserted its hard yellow fingers underneath his skin. He grabbed hold of his sister’s hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Here what?’

  ‘Here’s where they were sitting.’

  As Peter explained, details edging their way back, I formed a mental picture of the family in their dry seats, in the comfort of their vehicle, watching the distant figures on the field. Had they noticed the stranger standing in the rain?

  Peter didn’t apologise for having said nothing about the second car before, nor for the fact that it had taken this long to remember it. He described a station wagon with at least two passengers.

  Kat began to cry. I hugged her and told Peter that he’d done well and that we should go home now.

  . . .

  When I rang Katya’s coach, he was flustered and upset at first; but after I’d let him complain, he agreed to give me phone numbers for the children on my daughter’s team, and a number for the other team’s coach as well.

  Brook called when I was half way through the list. I told him what had happened, and that I was trying to track down a family who’d been in the carpark near the red sedan. He took down details and said he’d get back to me within the hour, which he did.

  Brook acted quickly, but ran into a brick wall with the Fletcher brothers. They’d been nowhere near the soccer field on Saturday afternoon. Instead they’d been attending their cousin’s birthday party.

  ‘Cameron could have slipped out for half an hour. Where was the party?’

  ‘Yarralumla.’

  ‘An hour then. It wouldn’t have been hard.’

  ‘His relatives will back him up,’ Brook said.

  . . .

  There weren’t that many red cars on the streets, when you started looking for them. I saw more yellow than red, yellow and an iridescent bluey-green, and white of course. White was the most common. I found myself counting red cars when I was crossing Northbourne Avenue.

  Had Cameron Fletcher left the soccer oval because my son had spotted him? Would he have tried the same trick twice? I’d rung everybody on the coaches’ lists, but had been unable to locate the people in the station wagon. Why park beside a suburban soccer oval in the rain unless you child was on one of the teams?

  . . .

  Katya’s school principal rang at lunch-time on Monday while I was enjoying a few minutes’ relaxation in the sun. One of the teachers had seen the red Hyundai—all had been alerted to the registration number—at the Lyneham shops.

  I cut the principal short, demanding to know where Katya was.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Mahoney. She’s with me.’

  Kat was sitting straight-backed in a chair that looked far too big for her, pale and scared. When I moved to hug her, she lifted her chin and pressed her lips together.

  A glance from the principal signalled that disturbing details could be kept for later. She told me that she’d already rung the police.

  I stroked Kat’s tangled hair back from her face, and asked gently if she’d seen the man and if it had been the same one.

  ‘We were playing on the equipment.’ Kat glanced towards the principal, who looked far too young to be running a school, and who explained, ‘It’s year one’s turn today.’

  The ‘equipment’ was on the side of the school facing away from the road. Cameron Fletcher—if it had been him—would have had to walk through the school grounds to find it.

  Brook arrived with a couple of uniformed constables, who went off to interview the teacher who’d seen the car and the staff who’d been on yard duty.

  Katya told Brook she’d been playing on the equipment ‘because it was our turn’. Glancing towards the principal, she said she’d eaten her lunch on the benches before that, lifting her chin resolutely in advance of some mistake or wrong-doing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the principal said, nodding. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Kat stared at her, wide eyed. The soccer field was one thing, but school, where she went every weekday, where she enjoyed going, and had carved out her own life—school was a different matter.

  When Brook had finished questioning her, Kat asked if she could go back to her class. I took my daughter to the door. She walked ahead, refusing to look back at me.

  I asked the principal if she could show me where the red car had been.

  I’d pictured the Hyundai parked outside the supermarket, or the school. Instead, I was led to a single row of cars in the next block, outside some offices.

  After the principal left me there, I did a circuit of the buildings, which included an accounting firm, an engineering designer, and next door, a shop that sold crystals and offered palm reading and clairvoyance.

  Cameron, or Don—the brothers were becoming interchangeable in my mind—might have expected to arrive and leave without anyone connected to the school knowing he was there. Perhaps he’d watched Katya from a distance, from among the trees that grew along the bike path. He might have been planning to return after school broke up for the day.

  A glass door on the other side of the clairvoyant’s had Leichhardt Lenders embossed in gold. I pushed the door open and went in. A receptionist was sitting behind a kidney-shaped desk. When I asked to speak to the manager, she pressed a button on her phone.

  The manager took in with a single glance that I was unlikely to be a potentia
l borrower, able to afford the interest payments and commissions that kept him in business.

  ‘What can I do for you, Mrs—’

  ‘Mahoney,’ I said. ‘I’m interested in a client, or potential client, who may have called in here, or had an appointment today. His name is Cameron Fletcher.’

  ‘Mrs Mahoney—’ the manager emphasised my name as though it was a sour piece of fruit that he’d been made to eat—‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate that my clients have a right to remain confidential.’

  ‘The police will be speaking to everyone in this block.’

  ‘I can assure you that the police have no reason to concern themselves with me.’

  ‘Does that mean Cameron Fletcher wasn’t here?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘He’s wanted on suspicion of child molesting. His car was seen by one of the teachers.’

  The manager went pale. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m the child’s mother. Was Fletcher here or not?’

  ‘I don’t have to answer your questions, if you’re not from the police. I don’t have to answer theirs either, or let them in unless they have a warrant.’

  ‘I’d be careful before I aligned myself with Cameron Fletcher.’

  ‘Thanks for your advice,’ the manager said icily. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a client waiting.’

  There was no one in the small vestibule apart from the receptionist. Perhaps the client was waiting in the street. I sat down under a tree and burst into tears.

  . . .

  Ivan was at work at the computer repair place in Fyshwick. I was glad he was occupied and would not be back till late. He sounded upset but strangely distant when I rang to tell him what had happened. I told him there was nothing he could do for the present, and no point in leaving early.

  Pete and Katya shut themselves up in Pete’s room straight after school. I’d been waiting outside the door of Kat’s classroom, which had made her angry. On the way home, she’d fought against tears.

  I listened to the rise and fall of my children’s determined voices through the door, while I stood in front of the fridge, wondering why there was nothing to cook for dinner. I took pasta and tinned tomatoes from a cupboard, then put them down again.

  Brook rang while I was frying onions.

  ‘Kat’s gabbling away to her brother,’ I said. ‘Plotting her revenge.’

  ‘Not a bad thing,’ Brook said mildly, ‘if it keeps her spirits up.’

  Cameron Fletcher wasn’t in Canberra, and had not been for the past few days. Brook had tracked him down having dinner at an expensive Melbourne restaurant. That left Don to drive the red Hyundai, or Clare. How much did Clare Fletcher know? How much was she involved?

  I was both a gaoler and a prisoner in my own house, fearful to let my daughter out of my sight, fearful to go anywhere unless harm to Katya should result. I agreed to let her go to school next day, but only if she promised never to set foot outside the building. Break times she was to spend in the staffroom. Storms of protest greeted this condition. The kids would tease her. She would be a laughing stock. I didn’t care, I said. It was that or stay at home. The problem was—both Kat and Peter knew this—home was far from the safest place to be.

  . . .

  Brook called in early the following afternoon. I’d wasted most of the day, sitting by the phone, fearing a distraught call from the school.

  We talked over cups of tea, Brook summarising a report that he’d received from customs. Under other circumstances, Brook would not have shared the information with me; but these weren’t ‘other’ circumstances, this was a crisis involving my family. I knew Brook wanted me to feel that he was making progress.

  The Sea Wizard had been filming around the south island of New Zealand before heading for Australia. From Westport on the south island, the captain had notified Australian customs of their next project, which included two weeks in Bass Strait, and three weeks travelling up the east coast. Faxes sent included a list of crew and equipment. Application was made for a cruising permit, which would be granted once the Sea Wizard had been inspected.

  ‘I also got their customs report from Auckland. Clean.’

  ‘Where was the Sea Wizard before New Zealand?’

  ‘Fiji.’

  The boat had entered Australian waters on schedule, on 11 February. A Coastwatch Dash 8 had picked it up at 0700 hours, flying the required International Pratique Q-flag. Radio contact was made and it was agreed that the craft would proceed directly to the customs boarding station. Winds of thirty to thirty-five knots had been forecast. But by 0930 hours, the mean wind speed had reached fifty knots, and an additional low had formed and intensified, moving rapidly over Bass Strait. In the gale, the Sea Wizard missed Tasmania altogether and fetched up on Erith Island.

  For the rest of that day and night, the captain had remained in regular radio contact with customs officials. Both captain and crew were instructed not to disembark. The storm was so severe that it was mid afternoon the following day before an inspection boat arrived.

  ‘They attached a copy of the inspector’s report,’ Brook said. ‘The Sea Wizard spent another four days at West Cove. The storm had done some damage to the hull and it had to be repaired.’

  I recalled the Bulli’s crew throwing its cargo overboard, and wondered why the film’s narrator hadn’t mentioned the Sea Wizard’s own troubles on route to the islands.

  By 13 February, Cameron’s yacht, the Lightning, had arrived at West Cove. One of Brook’s DCs had been compiling information on other seacraft anchored there.

  ‘Seems to have been a regular Pitt Street,’ Brook said.

  Each would be investigated, but only two of the yachts had recently entered Australian waters, and had been inspected at Portland and Geelong respectively.

  ‘Where’s the Sea Wizard now?’ I asked.

  ‘Headed back to Fiji.’

  ‘What about looking for the Maria Rosa?’

  ‘No mention of that in any of the reports I’ve seen. I think that one’s a fizzer, Sandra.’

  Not as far as Laila was concerned, I thought. ‘Merimbula’s on the east coast, and there are those two scuttled tugs in Eden harbour. I wonder if the Sea Wizard stopped there.’

  Brook frowned. ‘The customs report just says “travelling up the east coast”. There’s a customs station at Eden. I’ll follow up with them.’

  Thirty

  Over the next few days, Brook dutifully rang or called in. There were no more sightings of men hanging round the school, or red sedans, and I was beginning to think the immediate danger had passed.

  Brook had finally got Bernhard Robben to admit that he’d had a ‘fling’ with Laila.

  ‘But only after I threatened to question his wife.’

  Robben and Laila had met a few times at a motel in Cooma. Laila had been keen to continue, but Robben claimed he’d had enough. He denied taking Laila out in his boat. Brook didn’t think the young waterskier had been seeing things or lying, but until another witness was found, he couldn’t do much more with that part of the story. The other two men with Robben that Sunday had been Ben Sanderson and Cameron Fletcher. ‘Your three musketeers’, Brook called them, trying to get me to smile.

  Brook had ticked Robben off for not admitting straight away that Sanderson had been a friend, but Robben denied that they’d been friends. In diving circles ‘everyone knows everyone’. Sanderson had wanted to dive the homestead. Cameron Fletcher had come along ‘out of curiosity’, though of course he was an amateur compared to Sanderson.

  Robben had met Laila the weekend she’d gone diving off Merimbula.

  ‘Said he was down that way and decided to call in. His children are seven, five and three. He gave me the impression that family life could be constricting.’

  Brook mimicked the accents of a good family man who’d given in to temptation and then thought better of it. Again, he tried to make me smile. And smile I did, in spite of my anxiety.
Robben claimed that Laila was the one who’d wanted sex, and that he had no idea why she’d ‘turned up out of the blue at the boat ramp.’ As far as he was concerned, the ‘fling’ ended by mutual consent.

  ‘I didn’t want to jeopardise my marriage,’ Brook said in an aggrieved voice. ‘Laila was a lovely girl. We had some fun together. Where’s the crime in that?’

  ‘Fling is right,’ I said, reminding Brook that, when Laila had returned to the cottage and Bill Abenay, she’d been soaked.

  ‘What about Robben’s new boat?’ I asked.

  ‘Claims he’s paying it off. It won’t hurt him to stew for a few days. He might make a false move, but I’m not holding my breath.’

  Brook had questioned Robben about Cameron Fletcher, but Robben claimed to know no more than that Fletcher was Ben Sanderson’s employer, and ‘a rich man with a simply gorgeous yacht.’ Yes, Robben had been lucky enough to be invited to go sailing, and yes, they’d gone out into the Strait as far as the Kent Group. As to why Laila had photos of the Lightning on her computer, he had no idea. He’d never talked to her about Cameron’s yacht, and she’d never asked him.

  When asked if they’d talked about shipwrecks, in particular the Maria Rosa, Robben could not have been more surprised.

  ‘He laughed at the idea and called it kids’ stuff’, Brook said, with a warning glance at me.

  I saw again—the image was never far from my mind—that red waistcoat, wet and dirty, with its marks of oil. In my mind, it slid and slipped and shrank, becoming child-sized. It blazed into a beacon so that I might know for certain that my child was marked.

  I tried not to let Brook see how close I was to cracking up. I didn’t know which would be worse, Brook’s sympathy, or his saying, ‘I told you so.’

  Robben had alibis for both murders. The night Sanderson was killed, he’d been at his father-in-law’s sixtieth birthday party, the night of Laila’s death at home with his wife and kids.

  ‘How would I have got to Canberra and back without my wife finding out? I bet it was one of her Greenie friends. You know the type. Peace and love on the outside, and on the inside as driven by their baser instincts as the rest of us. So what if I had sex with the girl? She wanted it.’