The Unbroken Line

by Alex Hammond

  ‘You’re probably right but I appreciate your trying. We will, of course, pay you for your time. I know it’s a big ask but if you could make it a priority, maybe get what you have to me by the weekend? We’re on a deadline.’

  ‘Those are the materials you have collected?’ Quayle asked.

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Excellent. Then I shall start immediately.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Will had a restless night after leaving Quayle. He tried to recover some of the sleep debt he owed, putting his head on the pillow around eleven p.m. But it had smelt of Teresa, a complex aroma of bergamot and jasmine that flooded his mind with memories – her thighs gripping his hips, dark red hair falling across his face, her breath against his neck as she leant in close.

  Thoughts of Teresa collapsed as dread and guilt flushed through him. All he could see now was Eva’s face – the cuts, the blood, the outrage in her eyes. He was so far from where he’d hoped to be. Gone was the lightness that he’d believed would usher him intoa place of normality, into a life away from violence and turmoil. The Zamberlans had taken it, shattered the possibility before it’d had a chance to become real.

  He walked to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. He dug around in his jacket, slung over the back of a chair, for a tramadol. Swallowing the pill, he tried to find a clear route forwards, clouded by his desire to refuse Miller’s advice. But the fucker had a point; Will was essentially following the same course of action as his partner by denying Eva the full story. Although the prospect of a life with her was gone, there was still a chance he could salvage some of his rapidly fading integrity. He picked up his phone and composed an email to her:

  I have no idea if you’ll read this, but it’s important that you know a few things, things that I have learnt only recently. Miller was using the firm to research corrupt officials. Those men assumed that I was also behind the investigation and tried to scare me off. (They seem to be the same people behind Miller’s arrest.) This was the reason we were attacked, by what looks like former soldiers. You were right and I’m sorry, I couldn’t leave this alone. I willfind out who they are. I will expose them. I will see them in prison.

  After he hit send, he returned to bed. But he was too stimulated to sleep, stretched too thin between desire and shame.

  The next morning Will was hunched over a coffee, hoping caffeine would inspire his tired mind, when there was a light tap on his office door. Esther smiled at him, her shawl today consisting of an Escher-like pattern of interlocking maple leaves.

  ‘Mr Hume is here. Do you want something to drink? I’ve already offered to him tea and he’s said yes.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll have a water. And Esther,’ Will said, leaning forwards and whispering, ‘who is Mr Hume?’

  ‘Your lip reader. Shall I bring him through?’

  Will nodded and walked around the desk, pulling his satchel off the visitor’s chair.

  The man who entered the room was as tall as Will, thin and dressed completely in black. He wore a tie and a slim-fitted shirt and jeans. His hair had been shaved closely on the sides of his head, although a dark tuft remained on his crown, like a bird’s nest.

  ‘I’m Will Harris. Thanks for coming in.’

  ‘My pleasure. Hope I can help.’

  The well-tailored man formed his consonants loosely and elongated his vowels.

  He was deaf.

  ‘Please take a seat.’

  Hume nodded and sat down as Will pushed the other visitor’s chair next to him.

  Sitting beside Hume, Will could see a hearing aid and a dark disk implanted into the back of his skull.

  ‘It’s a cochlear implant,’ Hume said.

  ‘New?’

  ‘The latest model. I’m very fortunate. I’m well paid for my work.’

  ‘You’ve consulted with legal practitioners before?’

  ‘A few times. I also consult up in Canberra with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. So I appreciate the confidential aspect of our meeting.’

  ‘Great. And Esther got you to sign an NDA?’

  ‘I did,’ Esther said, appearing with the tea.

  ‘Great,’ Will said, pulling his laptop around so that it faced them.

  As Hume sipped from his cup, Will opened the CCTV footage of Saxon Walsh and Connor Fletcher.

  ‘I know the footage isn’t great, but I’m hoping you can tell me something, anything really, about what the young man facing the camera is saying.’

  Hume put the cup on the edge of the desk and leant forwards.

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he said.

  Will cued the footage from the point at which Saxon sauntered into frame while Connor was leaning up against the railing of the pedestrian bridge that ran above the train tracks.

  ‘This boy with his back to us. He is talking.’

  ‘That’s what I suspected.’

  ‘Definitely. You can see that he is moving his head. And here. His jawline is visible. He’s saying something to the other boy. There’s no way I can tell you what that is.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  A tension spread through Connor’s body, his legs locking in place and his arms stiffening, the muscles in his face stretching with anxiety.

  Hume leant in closer as Connor’s lips started to move. He watched as Saxon dropped his blazer on the ground, held his hands up and started to tread slowly forwards. Hume hardly moved as Connor shouted ‘no’ and clambered over the railing. When Saxon caught him and his face became obscured, Hume leant further forwards and stopped the footage.

  ‘I might start with this section,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the only section. That’s all of it.’

  ‘May I?’ he asked, reaching for the computer.

  Will turned the laptop a few degrees so that the keyboard faced Hume.

  Hume tapped a few keys and used the trackpad to zoom in, filling the screen with Connor’s face. Pixelated almost beyond recognition, it looked like a twisted Halloween mask.

  Hume watched the footage again, rubbing the tips of his fingers over his thumbs. Will held his cup of coffee in his hand, not daring to sip, while Hume’s tea steamed in gentle wisps on the desk beside him. Reaching into his pocket, Hume pulled out a Moleskine that he’d modified to hold a short pencil along the spine. He wrote in shorthand as he watched through the footage a few more times, leaving gaps between glyphs and filling these in during the replays.

  Some minutes later Hume sat back from the screen and took a sip of his tea. He turned towards Will.

  ‘Would you like to know what he is saying?’

  ‘Please,’ Will said, suddenly feeling the closeness of the room and the proximity of Hume, dressed all in black like a priest or necromancer speaking for the dead.

  Hume zoomed out the footage and played it through as he spoke.

  ‘He asks the other boy, “Did you follow me?”’ Hume pressed pause. ‘The other boy responds.’ Hume pressed play. ‘Then the subject says, “But I don’t want you here. You said you didn’t, you couldn’t love me.” Now as the other boy moves closer towards him, the subject says with increasing agitation, “I’m sick of it sacks. I can’t be like this any more. Fuck off. Just fuck off.” Then he shouts, “No!” and finally, well, he jumps over the balustrade. The thing I can’t pick is this reference to “sacks”.’

  ‘It’s the other boy’s name. An abbreviation of Saxon. Sax with an “x”.’

  ‘Well, that would make sense, then. “I’m sick of it, Sax.” The subject uses a diphthong where he shouldn’t, which muddies things up a little. But I’m confident that’s what is being said.’

  ‘He says, “You said you couldn’t love me”?’

  ‘The exact words are, “You said you didn’t”, breath, “couldn’t love me”. Yes. I’m absolutely certain of that.’

  Saxon is right . . .

  Could the suicide and the note have had another meaning? Not bullying but the last act of a desperate teenager in co
nflict with his identity? A young man overwhelmed by emotions and fuelled by hormones?

  Will raised the cup to his lips and sipped.

  ‘I will write a full report,’ Hume said, ‘and can attach it to a signed affidavit if necessary.’

  ‘That would be very helpful. Yes.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ he said, placing his cup on the desk. ‘Often these things take days to work through, with hours and hours of footage. It’s a nice change to have one that’s resolved so quickly.’

  And yet for Will it only posed more questions.

  Hume tucked the Moleskine back into his pocket.

  ‘I’ll email through the transcript in the next few days, along with an invoice.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Will said, following him as he stood.

  ‘Have a good day, Mr Harris.’

  Will shook his hand and held the door open.

  In his spare moments during the morning, Will found himself plotting through alternative scenarios behind Connor’s death. Taking it at face value, that Connor loved Saxon, could cast the whole interaction in a new light. What was it that Dianna had said? That Connor was “different”? If he was, what, gay? Bisexual? Undecided? Did he take his life because of this conflict, because he was knocked back? Spurned and ashamed? Will couldn’t even begin to plumb the depths of unformed, teenage emotions. He remembered the events of his teenage years, but that sense of insurmountable emotional intensity was lost to him now that he was grown. His issues had very real-world implications. They were less the abstract expression of the teenage worldview and more the cause and effect of hard physics – business partner angers dangerous men; dangerous men seek retribution.

  When three-thirty clicked over, he called the Walsh home. Sandi answered, a veneer of courtesy doing little to conceal her suspicion. Will fed her the same explanation he did when he’d first met her – if Saxon spoke to him alone, he was less likely to hide information. This time there was good reason for it.

  Less than a minute later, he had Saxon’s mobile number and had arranged to give him a lift home.

  Will watched as Saxon walked out of the school gates surrounded by his friends. They clustered around one another talking closely, the boys with their ties undone and blazers slung over their shoulders, the girls neatly dressed in skirts and ties. Except Dianna. Saxon had his arm over her shoulder and was grinning as he said something into her ear. She looked almost as dishevelled as she had over the weekend, her hair still unkempt, her socks bunched at her ankles, shins scuffed and grazed. When she saw Will she looked sideways, as though to look at him would give her away.

  She hasn’t told Saxon that we’ve met.

  Saxon’s other friends stared at the Porsche as he strode up to it and opened the passenger door.

  ‘Hey,’ Saxon said as he dropped into the black leather seat. ‘Nice car.’

  Will pulled out into the street and slowed to a crawl to guide the sports car’s low suspension over the speed bumps outside the school.

  ‘It’s not my car,’ Will said. ‘It belongs to the other lawyer in my firm. One with more money.’

  Saxon shrugged.

  Will eased over another bump.

  ‘So why did Dad hire you? I thought you were the best?’

  ‘Ha. Yeah. He hired me because my mother and he are good friends. She’s a judge too. I spent a lot of time with him at family barbeques when he was married to his first wife. I used to play with your half-sister when I was younger.’

  ‘With Andie?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Will said, turning onto a main road congested by the rush hour, all heading to the freeway. ‘I know what it’s like to have a parent who’s a judge.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Saxon stared off out the window.

  ‘Tell me something, Saxon. On the CCTV video of Connor, he’s saying something, talking with you. Can you tell me what he said?’

  Saxon returned his attention to the inside of the car. His face was more alert now, his eyes scanning over Will. ‘He said he couldn’t take it any more. That he was going to kill himself. That’s when I tried to stop him from jumping. You saw it.’ Saxon sighed. ‘Is that why Dad hired you? Because you also have a judge for a parent? Is that supposed to make me feel as though you and I have something in common? Is that why a forty-year-old is telling me we have a connection?’

  The car was finally moving again, edging towards the freeway’s entrance.

  ‘Yes. That was the thinking – we share a common background. And I’m not forty, Jesus, not even close. Since we’re speaking freely, I already know what Connor said to you on the bridge. I hired a lip reader.’

  Will took the car down the entry ramp onto the freeway, finally gathering some speed.

  Saxon was still, his hands crossed in front of him.

  ‘Saxon, Connor said that you’d told him you couldn’t love him.’

  Saxon didn’t move. His breathing remained steady. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How long had he been expressing these feelings to you? He said he was sick of it. That suggests some time.’

  Saxon shook his head. ‘Three weeks.’ For the first time, his voice was strained, unsure. ‘That video I showed you, it was later that night, sitting out on the pier when everyone else was asleep. I asked him why he wasn’t with Dianna. He said she wasn’t the one he wanted to be with. I told him that I’d wished he’d told me because it would have saved me a bit of time and money convincing her and paying for all the drugs she took. He said he was sorry and that he’d pay me back. I told him to stop being such a victim, that I didn’t need the money, and to tell me who it was that he did want to be with. That’s when he said it was me. That he loved me.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him that that would never happen. He reminded me of one night when we had been on pills and had kissed. That he’d hoped it had meant something. I told him it was just the drugs and that we’d kissed the girls that night too. It didn’t mean that they loved me or that I loved them. What the fuck is the word love anyway? Who even says that?’

  ‘Saxon, did Connor kill himself because of his anxieties over his sexuality?’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘Because of his feelings for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe? He was pretty explicit in the footage. He said he couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘Look. I don’t know. He was a friend of mine who was messed up. I don’t know why he did what he did, but I didn’t bully him.’

  ‘Then why the pictures?’

  ‘It was a dare, a stupid dare. To find the most fucked-up thing we could on the internet. I was over it. It was puerile. But he seemed to enjoy it.’

  Will moved to pass a semitrailer. ‘Saxon, this is very important to your case. This evidence could be critical in getting the police to drop their charges. It gives Connor a motive. It explains his actions.’

  ‘It’s not motive, it’s his feelings. Fucking law, fucking lawyers.’

  ‘Fucking judges too, don’t forget them.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

  Saxon started to fidget with the tip of his tie. ‘I didn’t think it would get this far. I didn’t know about the note. I didn’t know Connor’s mum would call the police.’

  ‘We have to tell them, Saxon. I have to show them the transcript of what Connor said. It’s the only shot we have at getting you out of this. It will almost wrap up the entire investigation.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘There’s still Saxon’s suicide note. He wrote, “Saxon was right. I should be put down.”’

  Saxon stiffened. He turned in his seat, held up a finger and jabbed it in Will’s direction.

  ‘I didn’t say he should be put down. I said people who are victims are a waste of space. He asked me if he was a victim and I said yes. I didn’t say he should be put down. I didn’t even say he was a waste of space. He was never very rational. He was always emotiona
l. You could never convince him by being reasonable.’

  Saxon turned back to face the road, shoving his hands under his armpits as he crossed his arms.

  Will changed lanes again, tapped the accelerator and brought the Porsche smoothly around three cars slowing to exit the freeway.

  ‘All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to sit down with your parents and the police. We’re going to show the police the transcript of the CCTV footage. And then you’re going to repeat to them what you said to me just now.’

  ‘Do you think that will get them to drop the charges?’

  Throughout the conversation, Saxon’s bravado had been falling away one brittle teenage chip at a time. In that instant, however, it was all back. His head was cocked to one side, his shoulders loose again in the swagger with which he always moved.

  ‘I think so,’ Will said. ‘I think it should be enough.’

  Will glanced over at Saxon. He was looking out the window again. The thin line of his mouth was turned up at the edges, smiling.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A light rain was falling. It was bouncing off the leaves of the elms along the street. Up until a few minutes ago the footpath had been overflowing with mid-week pedestrian traffic. Now it was almost empty, just a few couriers tying up bikes and lugging satchels, and a clerk quickening her pace causing her wheeled suitcase to clatter over bluestone. Will watched from under the sandstone eaves of the Supreme Court, a wide pillar shielding him from the rain. A gang of barristers emerged from the doorway behind him, bottlenecking at the edge of the cloister before rushing out into the rain.

  Will checked his watch. He’d need to get back to the office soon. His early morning meeting with Justice Walsh had gone longer than expected, the man’s grim expression lifting as Will had explained to him how the charges against Saxon might be dropped. What really remained was for Levitt and Huynh to run the calculation of career minus charging a judge’s son times the strength of their evidence. Will was glad he wasn’t in their shoes.