‘Nah, I’ve got something else to add to it when I get home,’ he said. ‘I’ll post it down the road somewhere.’
CHAPTER 39
Gone
The incessant trill and vibration of the mobile phone on the bedside table woke Christine from her peaceful sleep.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, I’m sorry, I might have the wrong number? I’m after Antonio Fitzpatrick.’
Christine’s mind was slow. Antonio? Who else called him Antonio apart from her? ‘No you haven’t got the wrong number, this is Ant’s phone.’
Louise recognised Christine’s voice straight away.
‘Christine? Is that you? It’s Louise Whadary from Kings Cross Detectives.’
‘Louise? Why are you calling Ant?’
‘He’s supposed to be here, in Kings Cross. I’m waiting for him.’
Christine’s mind still wasn’t properly awake. ‘Why’s he coming to see you? Why do you want to see him?’ she asked.
‘Just following up on a few of my enquiries. I thought Ant might be able to shed a bit more light on a few things.’
‘What sort of things?’
Louise didn’t want to talk in detail with Christine, and sidestepped deftly. ‘How are you going Christine? Where are you?’
‘I’m in The Cross.’
Louise’s mind reeled; she thought Christine lived with her boyfriend in Melbourne. She tried to remain casual. ‘Oh, I see. What are you doing here?’
‘Not much,’ Christine avoided the question. ‘Just thought I’d, um, have a visit.’
‘Did you come with Ant?’
‘No, I came on my own. Ant…’ Christine paused, wanting the phone call to be over. She didn’t want to let on to Louise what had transpired over the past few weeks. Plus, she didn’t know why Ant was going to the police station; he hadn’t mentioned anything to her.
‘Anyway, I don’t know where he is right now. He was here, but now he’s not.’
She hung up as quickly as she could extract herself from the awkward conversation, trying not to let on that she was starting to panic. She started to fret as she walked around the room. Everything was gone.
She scrawled through his phone contacts. None, apart from hers. His text messages. None, apart from their message stream. She tried to log into his Facebook account. He’d logged out. His email account. Logged out. His browser history, recent calls, they were all gone.
She gulped back the tears and swallowed her fear, trying to decide what to do next. The first thing she had to do was get out of this dive. The only reason she was here was because Ant was here, wrapping her in a safe cocoon and sheltering her from the real world. With him gone, she felt offended by the smelly toilet and smoke stained walls.
A plan started to form. She would wait for him in her more luxurious Airbnb apartment. He’d suggested a couple of days ago they relocate but she had resisted. The main reason was she couldn’t remember where all her things had ended up when she went on her bender, and didn’t know what state her room was in. She couldn’t remember if she’d taken anyone back to her room and whether there would be signs of her having been in the bed with someone else.
She pulled on the jeans and top which Ant had bought for her, and bundled up the street clothes she’d been wearing when he found her. When she pushed open the door to the street, the bright sun burnt her eyes and it took a moment to get her bearings.
Her breath caught in her throat when she spotted a large woman standing underneath one of the old, leafy trees that lined the street. Bessie. How could this be?
‘Hello love.’ Bessie wrapped her arms around Christine, hugging her tight. Christine’s tears soaked through Bessie’s top.
‘It’s alright, love. He’s gone.’
‘How do you know he’s gone? How is it that you are here?’ Christine sobbed.
‘I came looking for you. I had a feeling you would be here. I didn’t find you. But I found Ant. That’s how I come to be here, waiting for you, now that he’s gone.’
‘I don’t want him to be gone,’ Christine protested, gulping to catch her breath in between bouts of crying. ‘I love him.’
‘No, you don’t. You love the idea of him. Danny’s the one for you. He’s out of his tree. He doesn’t understand any of what’s going on. But he loves you. He’ll be there for you when you need him. He won’t leave you in the lurch like Ant has just done. There’s no dirty, dark secrets of the past to catch up with you and Danny. He’s your future. Not Ant.’
Christine felt sick when she thought about Danny.
‘I can’t go back! Danny will never forgive me once he finds out what I’ve done. Some real bad things, Bess. Real bad.’
Bessie hugged her again.
‘Not so bad they can’t be fixed. No point looking back. Got to look forwards.’
Christine started to shake.
‘That’s what’s so hard. All this looking back. That’s what’s brought me undone. I’ve got to look back to find Annabelle, but when I look back it messes with my head, and I feel like I’m living in 1988. Then I wish I was in eighty-eight. But I can’t be in eighty-eight while I’m in 2016. How can I be in two places at once?’
Bessie pulled back and held Christine by the upper arms, so she could look her firmly in the eyes.
‘You can’t be in eighty-eight. You’re not in the eighties; I’m telling you that for nothing. You need to get your head straight, and back to where you were before you took off on this crazy quest.’
Christine shook her head.
‘How can I go back? Danny would die if he knew what I’ve done, where I’ve been, who I’ve been with.’
Bessie pulled her close again.
‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, love. You can pick up from where you left off. Just go back, apologise, and get on with your life.’
Christine pulled away, jutting her chin out in defiance, like a petulant teenager. ‘Why are you telling me what to do? Why are you organising me?’
Bessie cackled. ‘Because you’re not doing such a good job of it yourself right now. You always did have a tendency to go off the rails. You’d get everything together for a while, then fall apart at the seams. People don’t change. You haven’t changed. Off on your wild goose chases, chasing rainbows. You can’t live your life like that, and Danny is the one who you need to be with. He’ll keep you on the straight and narrow.’
‘Maybe Ant hasn’t gone,’ Christine said, pasting false cheer on her face, as though she hadn’t heard a word Bessie said. ‘Maybe he’s just gone around to the Airbnb where I was staying. He said he wanted us to shift there.’
‘I don’t think so. In fact I know so,’ Bessie said quietly. ‘He’s gone Christine. Gone.’
‘No! He can’t be! We were together just a few hours ago. Why would he leave me like that?’
‘Maybe he realises he’s not the one for you. He can’t fit into the life you’ve built for yourself. That’s probably why he’s taken off like this, without even a note or a proper goodbye. He fits into your old life, not your new life.’
Christine buried her face in her hands. ‘I have no life, I’ve completely fucked it. I’ve probably lost my job, I’ve lost Danny. My life is nothing.’
‘Bullshit. Stop it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Come on, let’s go!’ Bessie said, impatient to get out of this around and around conversation.
Reluctantly, Christine started walking. Bessie fell into step beside her.
‘We need a coffee. And some brekky. Everything will feel a whole lot better after that,’ Bessie said brightly. She squeezed Christine’s hand and held it tight. ‘Look at us, hey, back where it all began.’
Bessie laughed. Christine joined in. ‘Was that really us, Bess? Was that really how we lived?’
‘Yep, that was us. But things are different now. We’re different. Come on, enough backwards. See these feet going forwards? That’s the way we’re going now. One foot in front of the other. But not too fast.
This old girl can’t keep up.’
Christine felt numb, but Bessie was right. If she kept one foot in front of the other she would be okay. Everything, eventually, would be okay.
CHAPTER 40
Strawberry Shortcake
Louise couldn’t hide the stupid, happy grin on her face when Bessie and Christine arrived. It was the first time she had met them face to face, and having them in the room together, especially in light of the latest development, had her heart pumping.
She ushered them into a small office with a desk and a couple of chairs on either side. Bessie seemed to take up half the room, and she tried to get comfortable in a chair which was many sizes too small for her frame. Louise and Christine sat opposite her, Louise’s immaculately clean desk separating them. It was hot and stuffy, and they were all as nervous as each other.
Louise gently placed a brown paper package on the table. Christine and Bessie watched, intrigued, as she carefully unwrapped it.
‘Do either of you recognise this?’
Bessie picked up the notebook with Strawberry Shortcake on the front. When she opened the first page she couldn’t stop a small gasp escaping.
‘No, I don’t recognise it,’ she said softly. Bessie handed it to Christine, delicately, like it was made of gold. Christine opened it and flicked through the first few pages.
‘Oh my God,’ Christine said. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘That’s the question I was hoping you might be able to answer.’
‘That makes no sense,’ Bessie said, annoyed. ‘If we had this, we would have given it to you a long, long time ago. In fact, we would have given it to Rhiannon all those years ago. If this diary was in our possession we had no reason not to share it with the police when Annabelle went missing. Or pass it onto her dear old Mum.’
Louise tried not to crumple under the weight of Bessie’s burst of anger. The room became deathly silent.
Eventually Bessie spoke. ‘I think I have an idea of where this has come from,’ she said, her anger gone as quickly as it had come. ‘I reckon Ant had it.’
Christine’s head was a muddle.
‘But why would he have it? What’s he got to do with Annabelle? It couldn’t have been Ant,’ Christine protested. ‘If he had this, he would have given it to me when we ran into each other again. I’ve been with him for weeks, he would have given it to me!’
Bessie glared at her, not wanting her to reveal too much about her being in The Cross with Ant. Undeterred, Christine pushed on. ‘He knew I was desperately searching for Annabelle; he would have given me this to help me. No, you have it all wrong Bessie. It can’t have come from Ant.’
Bessie was blunt. ‘Have you considered he might not have been as honest with you as he could have Christine?’
Louise silently watched their conversation unfold. Maybe Bessie was right. Maybe Ant knew more than what he’d told the detectives when he first took them out to the party site. Maybe running into Christine had triggered something for him… was it guilt?
Bessie and Christine were still arguing.
‘After you left Christine, Ant went right off the rails. Don’t forget he was a drug dealer, and it was a pretty cut-throat business. I know that underneath it all, he is a pretty good guy, but he was in a dangerous line of work back then. After you left, he did some stupid things. He was in with a pretty bad crew. That other bloke, who used to hang around all the time? Craig?’
‘You mean Carl?’ Louise asked.
‘Oh yeah, Carl,’ Bessie looked at Louise, as though she only just remembered Louise was still in the room. ‘I used to see them together all the time, after Christine left. Could never understand why Ant let him hang around so much.’
Louise had the notepad out now, scribbling away. What was it about this Carl character?
‘Do you know where Carl is now?’ Louise interjected.
‘No. No idea ,’ Bessie said. ‘Come to think of it, I dunno the last time I even saw him. I can’t remember when he stopped showing up around the place. Just can’t remember.’
Louise moved on to her next question, probing with as much subtlety as she could muster while her thoughts raced wildly ahead. ‘If you think this diary has come from Ant, what do you think he knows about Annabelle’s disappearance? Is there anything, anything at all, you can remember after she went missing, that sticks out?’
‘Only that he was very helpful to the police,’ Christine jumped in to defend Ant again. ‘He took us out to the party spot to help look for her. He supported me, looked after me, when I went on a bender.’
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in my long and interesting life, you never say never,’ Bessie interrupted impatiently.
‘Bessie, how could you imagine that Ant had anything to do with it?’ Christine’s eyes had sparks flying from them. Louise flushed anxiously. This was not going well; her Dad would say things were going all to pot.
‘He’s holding back on something girl, I know that for sure. A leopard doesn’t change its spots. You can’t tell me his nose is clean if he’s held on to this diary all this time, and didn’t tell us.’
Christine put her head into her hands. She felt hot. Claustrophobic. The urge for a hit of something was making it hard to breathe. Bessie’s face softened, regretting her harshness. Sweat beads had formed on her brow, and she mopped them with a handkerchief from her handbag.
‘I’ll get you ladies some water,’ Louise said gently. ‘And see if I can get someone to turn up the air-conditioning.’
Louise decided when she returned to change tack.
‘There’s a support group, Families and Friends of Missing Persons,’ she said. ‘Not sure if you’ve heard of it?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Christine said,
‘They have meetings with other families and friendswho are going through what you are, but they also have lots of information to support people who are missing someone. I could give you a number, or get some stuff for you to read.’
Louise hadn’t been able to adjust the temperature, and despite the drink of water, Bessie was overheating. When Christine didn’t answer, Bessie stepped in.
‘That’d be great Louise.’ Bessie extracted herself from her uncomfortable chair, making moves to leave. Christine followed suit.
Louise smiled weakly. She was also feeling hot and bothered, in this small stuffy office, but had to exude confidence and supreme organisation. She thanked Bessie and Christine for their time, reassuring them she would keep in touch if anything new arose.
‘Find our Annabelle, hey?’ Bessie said. ‘You find our girl. It’s been long enough. Someone, somewhere, knows something. You just gotta put all the pieces together now.’
…
‘Have I got some major updates for you!’ Louise announced loudly as she burst into Rafe’s office, without knocking.
His face remained impassive. How many times did he have to remind her not to burst in? ‘Take a few steps back, and a few deep breaths. Slow down, start from the start.’
Louise blushed. ‘Sorry Sir, I was just excited…’
‘I know. You have a tendency for inappropriate displays of excitement and inappropriate entries into my office.’
Despite the sting of his scolding, Louise pushed on.
‘Well, Ant was supposed to come in and see me yesterday. You know, Ant from the Annabelle Brown case, the one who took the detectives out to the campsite. He said he had something to tell me, he wouldn’t go into it over the phone, and said he was going to be in The Cross and that when he arrived he’d come and see me. But he didn’t show.’
Rafe couldn’t stop impatience showing on his face. Louise rushed to get to the point.
‘Then today this package arrived in the mail!’
‘And what exactly is this package?’ Rafe asked in his best deadpan voice.
‘It’s a diary,’ she whispered.
‘Whose diary?’
‘Annabelle Brown’s diary.’
‘What? Are you
sure?’ Rafe was stunned.
‘Yes, I’m absolutely sure. Here is Annabelle Brown’s diary.’ Louise puffed out her chest, feeling proud as punch as she handed it over.
Rafe took the gloves she offered, and slowly put them on. ‘So tell me, is there anything of value to this investigation in this diary?’ he asked, as he carefully opened it and flicked gently through the pages.
Louise’s shoulders slumped. ‘No, unfortunately. The last diary entry is around the day she arrived and then there’s nothing. Nothing at all; I can’t work it out but maybe she lost it when she arrived?’
‘So if she lost it, who’s had it all this time? And why are they giving it to you now?’
‘Well, that is the million dollar question sir,’ she parroted one of his favourite sayings. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Do you know where it came from?’
‘Kings Cross Post Office. Right next door, and my instincts…,’
‘Right, your instincts,’ Rafe butted in, ‘go on then.’
Undeterred, Louise continued. ‘My instincts tell me Ant posted this diary.’
‘So how does this explain why Ant didn’t simply walk in this door and hand it to you himself?’
‘Well, he obviously chickened out, Sir. So he thought he’d post it instead.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘Who?’
‘Ant!’ Rafe was getting exasperated.
‘Um, I don’t know,’ Louise confessed.
‘Have you tried calling him, started looking for him?’
‘I tried to call him, but I got Christine, you know, Annabelle’s friend. They were prostitutes together for Bessie Fleetwood, the…’
‘Yes, I know who these people are Louise, I’ve read the file.’
‘Anyway, Christine doesn’t know where Ant is, he disappeared while she was sleeping, here, just around the corner. Not long after I spoke to her, Bessie called, and she’s here as well.’
‘So Ant, a former drug dealer, Annabelle’s friend Christine, and their pimp Bessie are all here in Kings Cross, nobody knows where Ant is now, and he’s posted you Annabelle’s diary. This Christine and Bessie, are you sure they don’t know where Ant is?’
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