by Fiona Lowe
Charlotte raised her head, her expression stricken. ‘Not exactly.’
Concern rippled through Edwina at the vague answer. ‘Is someone in danger?’
‘Not really.’
Charlotte’s voice sounded hollow and small and it intensified Edwina’s disquiet. She bent down until she was at eye level. ‘Charlie, are you using drugs?’
Chagrin flashed across her granddaughter’s young, line-free face. ‘No! I’m not that stupid.’
‘You’re far from stupid, darling, and I didn’t say you were. But at some point in our lives, all of us make a poor choice. We all make mistakes, only some are bigger mistakes than others.’ She sighed and stood, feeling like she was pushing against the hefty weight of life experience. ‘Sadly, some mistakes can’t always be reversed.’
Charlotte watched her closely, her expression contemplative. ‘I can’t imagine you ever making a mistake, Mardi.’
Oh, the naiveté of youth. Forcing a light laugh out of a tight throat, Edwina tried not to think about the one irreversible mistake that continued to haunt her and had done so for over four decades. ‘Can you give your mother a few days’ grace before telling her this information you think will upset her?’
Charlotte rose until she stood tall and graceful, looking down at Edwina. ‘I guess.’
‘If it helps,’ Edwina offered, ‘you can always tell me. Or one of your aunts?’
Perfectly straight white teeth snagged Charlotte’s bottom lip as a blur of emotions played across her face. ‘Thanks, Mardi, but if I tell you, I know you’ll just tell me that I have to tell Mum so …’ She grabbed a towel and dried her face. ‘What’s going to happen to Dad?’
At last. Relief that she was talking about James pushed Edwina’s other concerns to the back of her mind. ‘I imagine the police will interview him.’
‘And?’
‘Come into the kitchen and have some tea and toast. We can talk about it there.’
CHAPTER
10
Harriet focused her binoculars and her chest immediately tightened. Through her lounge-room window she could see the television trucks parked at the end of her long driveway. She lowered the binoculars, feeling the weight of them dragging down on her neck and pressing heavily on her chest. The real sensation matched the metaphysical one that had been crushing her for the last seventeen hours.
The media had taken up residence outside Miligili’s gates around eight this morning and the first reporter had knocked on the front door soon after. By nine, she’d hired young Adrian’s burly, weightlifting son to stand at the gates and act as security. For the most part it had worked although it hadn’t prevented one rat-bastard journalist from entering the garden the back way, hiking in from across the Stony Rises. More than anything she’d wanted to stalk out onto the veranda, tell him in no uncertain terms that he was trespassing on private property and then demand he leave. But the thought of photos of her looking and sounding shrewish had kept her inside, feeling trapped in her own home. She hated this invasion of privacy and she’d called the police, expecting them to come and move the press on. The young constable had listened to her politely and then informed her that they were very busy with more pressing matters and an officer couldn’t be spared just at the moment.
Yesterday, Harriet wouldn’t have hesitated in telling the constable that her safety was equally important, but today she knew exactly what those pressing matters were. James was being investigated for fraud and by default so was she. Last night, after everyone had left the party, James had left her standing in the detritus of a celebration gone wrong and had barricaded himself in the study. She’d rattled the doorhandle without success and been forced to press her ear up against the oak in an attempt to work out what he was doing. All she’d heard was his low and urgent voice on the phone and the tap of computer keys.
Unable to ask him the questions that burned so hot they branded themselves on her mind, she’d tied on an apron, pulled on some gloves and worked frantically to clear away the party mess. She’d scrubbed surfaces hard and fast, removing the stains and the grime until everything gleamed. Amid her frenzy of spraying and wiping and rubbing and polishing, she’d desperately wished that a bit of elbow grease was all it took to clean away James’s treachery.
The pealing of the doorbell at 12.30 am had put paid to that little fantasy. Police officers stood at her door with a search warrant in hand. She’d lost it, screaming, ‘This is all your fault!’ at a stony-faced and silent James. She’d had to stand helplessly by while the police searched and seized two filing cabinets from the study and all the computers in the house, including Charlotte’s laptop. She’d coldly told the officer that it was entirely unnecessary for him to take a school student’s computer, especially when she’d been at boarding school all term, but he’d merely cited the terms of the warrant and tucked the slim silver device under his arm.
When they’d taken all they wanted from Miligili, they’d asked James to accompany them to his office in town. Computers, files and mobile phone records now resided at the Billawarre police station and they were being combed for evidence to add to the initial nine charges. A Geelong detective, called in to help the local police, had asked her if James had a gambling problem. The question had rammed home the fact that her husband was currently a stranger to her. She’d told him she didn’t think James had a gambling problem, but given the events of the last twenty-four hours, she couldn’t say so with any certainty. Was gambling the reason he’d stolen the money? God, she had no idea. No idea about anything.
James had spent part of last night and all of this morning being questioned at the police station before being formally charged with obtaining property by deception, obtaining property by financial advantage, theft, and using and making false documents. In one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing moments of her life, she’d had to stand in a courtroom and answer questions about her ability to post bail of fifty thousand dollars.
They’d left the court an hour ago, driving home in separate cars and navigating the media crush outside their beautiful and intricate iron gates. Without a word, James had shut himself in the study again so he didn’t have to face her. Unable to help herself, she’d turned on the television and watched the news reports. The footage outside the courthouse showed her as a well-dressed woman with a tight face walking two steps ahead of her husband. The images of James—head down, unshaven, with wildly ruffled hair and wearing a now very rumpled bespoke suit—devastated and enraged her in equal measure.
How could he have done this to them? The question had started in her head last night and never stopped. It was slowly sending her mad. Her desire to believe him innocent had been shredded and then stomped on by the mounting number of people coming forward to claim he owed them money. She hadn’t told the police about the twenty-two thousand dollars he’d stolen from her practice or her discovery this morning that her superannuation fund was now echoingly empty. She knew she should tell them but something was holding her back. Loyalty? Love?
She kicked out at one of the helium balloons that hovered just above the floor, sending it wafting into the air. It lingered for a moment up where it belonged—proud and pretty—before gravity dragged it back down to its new, forlorn position close to the parquetry. Why was she holding back? James obviously had no loyalty to her or to Charlotte. If he had, he wouldn’t have turned their lives upside down and inside out, exposing them to the ridicule and prying eyes of the town, the district and far, far beyond. All day her phone had beeped with messages and rung with calls from people she hadn’t heard from in years until she’d eventually turned the damn thing off and stuffed it under a cushion on the couch. The worst call had been from the Royal College of Surgeons wanting documentation that she wasn’t involved in the alleged crime.
Her face suffused with heat again as she remembered the cool voice on the end of the line treating her as if she was the combination of a difficult child and a morally bankrupt adult. The fact that she couldn’t understand h
ow or why James could have broken the law added to her torment. She tore the binoculars from around her neck and threw them onto the couch.
Enough was enough. James had been monosyllabic for too long. He owed her a detailed explanation. She stormed down the hall and tried the door of the study. To her surprise it opened and she strode in.
‘Talk to me.’
For a moment, the tall-backed Victorian office chair didn’t move and then it slowly swivelled. James’s handsome but haggard face came into view across the wide mahogany desk. He held a glass of whiskey in one hand and he stretched out his other, waving it casually through the stream of sunshine that captured dancing dust motes and cast rainbows on the carpet.
‘Lovely weather we’re having, H. Although it’s a bit dry. If it keeps up we’ll have to hand feed the calves.’
‘Damn it, James.’
He raised his brows. ‘What? Not what you wanted to chat about?’
‘You know exactly what I want to talk about.’ She pressed her palms against the desk and leaned in. ‘How much money have you stolen and how many people have you stolen it from?’
He met her gaze, his expression loaded with a combination of distress and disappointment. ‘As my wife,’ he hit the word with jagged emphasis, ‘you’re supposed to believe in my innocence. You’re supposed to gather the family together and stand by me. Haven’t seen much evidence of that last night or today.’
She wanted to lunge at him but she didn’t know if it was to grab him by the throat or hug him. From the moment she’d refused his extended hand last night, he’d been behaving very differently from the man she loved and thought she knew. Her mind raced, thoughts ping-ponging wildly, and she knew she couldn’t let her seesawing emotions get in the way of reason. Reason and logic were all she had left. Clinging to them was the only way she was going to make sense of what he told her. The only way she could get the truth.
‘I’m sorry you’re feeling abandoned,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Let’s leave out the dozen accusations of your clients, shall we? As my accountant, and not to mention my husband, you’re not supposed to steal three hundred thousand dollars of my money.’
He downed the dark amber whiskey and refilled the glass from the bottle on the table. Yesterday it had been full. Today it was almost empty. ‘I didn’t steal the money. I borrowed it.’
‘Borrowed it?’ She heard the rising incredulity in her voice. ‘Borrowing is something that’s done with consent on both sides. It infers it will be returned.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, nodding. ‘I borrowed the money with every intention of returning it. I needed a loan.’
Confusion snuck in, contaminating her tenuous grip on logic. ‘I don’t understand why you didn’t ask me? I mean, I would have said yes.’
His eyes narrowed slightly, deepening the blue. ‘You always say we’re equal partners, H, so I took you at your word.’
She struggled with his words and the sentiments they generated. Yes, she’d always believed they were equal partners. She valued that about their marriage. How many times over the years had she glibly told people they were a team? She’d frequently felt superior when women complained about their husband’s lack of respect and domestic contributions and she’d taken pleasure in saying, ‘James values my work as I value his.’
But real partners told each other things and kept each other in the picture. The gnawing disquiet of the past weeks thundered back, painfully reminding her he’d stopped telling her things a long time ago. With the advantage of hindsight she now realised why—he’d been too busy hiding things from her. ‘Do you have a gambling addiction?’
‘No.’
A flutter of relief stirred the mess of complicated feelings she currently felt for him. ‘Then why did you need the loan?’
‘To pay the dividends on the McCluskey development.’
The softly spoken words may as well have been bullets peppering her body. She sank into a winged armchair, facing him across the desk. ‘But surely the sale of the land paid them?’
He shrugged. ‘Unlike your job, business isn’t an exact science.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, James. If no land was sold, no dividends would need to be paid. What have you done with the dividend money?’
He was silent for a moment, staring into his glass. ‘I used some of it to service the business’s bank loans. I invested the rest.’
It sounded like a Ponzi-style scheme: taking from Peter to pay Paul. ‘Why on earth would you invest money without permission?’
‘Why do you think?’ He slammed down the glass and whiskey sloshed onto the green leather desk top. ‘To save the business and repay the debt.’
She stared at him, her mouth falling open. ‘Save the business?’ she repeated inanely as if that would make things clearer. ‘How long has it been struggling?’
‘It’s been bleeding money for two years.’
‘Two years?’ Her brain felt leaden as she tried to absorb the news. ‘You never said a word. Why didn’t you tell me?’ Anger took hold like wildfire. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Yeah, right.’ He took another slug of his drink. ‘Of course I couldn’t tell you. That meant I was failing and with you, everything has to be so fucking perfect.’
Denial burned hot in her chest. ‘That’s not true.’
He snorted. ‘The hell it is. Look at this house, look at the party last night, look at the hell you put your staff through so they meet your exacting standards. Charlie and I aren’t staff but you expect more from us than we can give.’
‘Leave Charlotte out of this.’
‘No.’ His eyes flashed hard as slate. ‘I’ve got a news bulletin for you, H. I’m not you. She’s not you.’
‘She sure as hell isn’t you,’ she said in an uncontrollable screech. ‘She hasn’t stolen and then lost other people’s money.’
‘Only because she wasn’t forced to.’
‘Who held a gun at your head, James?’
His handsome face hardened into deep and bitter lines. ‘You, my darling. You, your pretentious birthright, your family name, your assumed entitlement and your fucking superior sense of self.’
His cruel and unanticipated attack blindsided her, sending pain and bewilderment slamming through her. Not once in all their years together had he ever said anything so brutal. Her throat thickened, tears threatened and for one tempting moment she wanted to curl up in a ball. A shiver started at her toes and raced across her skin before burrowing down deep and invading her bones and her marrow. The cold was so insidious she felt like she’d never be warm again. Ignoring his words, she tried to marshal her thoughts into some sort of coherent order.
‘Surely,’ she said, her words coming out slowly and precisely, ‘you’re not blaming me for your breaking of the law?’
‘Don’t get all high and mighty on me now, Harriet. For a decade, all you’ve wanted is for us to be Billawarre’s power couple. Everything you’ve done, every party you’ve thrown, every dinner invitation you’ve issued and accepted has been part of that plan. Me becoming mayor was part of that plan. Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. If I’d gone bankrupt, becoming mayor would have been impossible.’
This conversation was like being in a parallel universe. He looked like her husband but he didn’t sound anything like him. ‘I suggested you run for mayor because I believed you’d be good for Billawarre. I never forced you to stand. You could have said no.’
His hard and derisive laugh bounced off the walls. ‘Your suggestions are a lot like your expectations: they have to be met. Let’s turn the spotlight back onto you, shall we? Ask yourself this. What would your reaction have been if I’d gone bankrupt two years ago? Be honest, now.’
‘I would have been upset for you, I would have—’
‘Bullshit!’ His fist thumped the desk. ‘That’s utter bullshit and you know it. You’d have been furious that I’d failed. Mortified that people were talking about us. You’d have carried on about your family
name being dragged through the mud. I did what was necessary to avoid all of that and protect your precious social standing.’
Hot white fury exploded inside her, blasting out the cold. ‘Don’t you dare justify breaking the law by pinning the blame on me. You had choices and you made the selfish one. Nothing can justify you stealing money to try to save yourself from bankruptcy and failure.’ She lurched to her feet. ‘Oh, and great job on not dragging us through the mud. You well and truly fucked up that ambition. I might have been able to forgive you using my money and my superannuation to prop up the business but I can’t forgive you for stealing from people in town.
‘Those people trusted you and my good name. A name that’s meant a lot in this district for a hundred and seventy-five years. You’ve stolen money from my patients. From our friends. God. You went so low you even stole money from the disabled.’ The nausea she got every time she thought about what he’d done spun in her empty stomach. She swallowed against a surge of acid, forcing the burn back down. ‘You stole from Tasha, you bastard.’
‘The plan was always to pay it back,’ he said, his anger suddenly gone, leaving behind only exhaustion. He’d aged ten years overnight and the handsome and successful man in his mid-forties was nowhere to be seen. Deep lines cut in around his now bloodshot eyes and the skin that stretched over his cheeks was florid and puffy. Two days ago, back when her world had been steady on its axis, if he’d looked like this she’d have been worried he was coming down with a virus. Today, her sympathy was vanquished. Her trust was in tatters and her heart was so battered it limped painfully in her chest.
‘Get out.’
‘Fine.’ He rose wearily to his feet. ‘I need a shower anyway.’
‘No.’ She shook her head so fast her brain hurt. ‘I mean pack a bag and leave this house.’
‘And go where, exactly?’ Eyes that had once made her smile bored into her, adding to her pain. ‘Remember my bail conditions? The ones we both signed?’
‘I don’t care where you go,’ she said, fast losing any semblance of composure. ‘You’ve brought shame and pain down on Charlotte and me. You’ve brought the press to our doorstep. We can’t come and go freely without risking images of us being beamed around the country. Go and sleep in one of those half-constructed houses in the McCluskey estate before the bank seizes them. Go anywhere and take the press with you. You’re not welcome here.’
