‘No, Ben, look—’
‘I’m going to talk to someone, Leila. I have professional obligations.’ Pause. ‘You don’t . . .’
‘What?’
He shakes his head and moves off, and she realises her heart is pounding. For the first time she sees what she might have done to him. This burden she has taken on, it’s heavier than she foresaw.
Eighteen
It began to rain as Troy drove into the city, the first time in weeks so the water lifted the oil and made slicks on the road for vehicles to slide on. When he got out of the car it was tropical, and the big drops of water felt greasy, maybe because they were landing on sweat. He ran into the building.
Emily Nguyen was in the cafe already, hunched over a cup of black tea at a table near the front. For a moment he thought she might be crying, but when she saw him she came alive, standing up and smiling, offering him a chair like it was her own home. Her face was different, looked unaffected by grief. It was interesting she could be like this so soon after what had happened.
She was wearing a dark blue pinstripe and quite a lot of makeup, and seemed at ease with the glances she was attracting. In fact, he’d have said she was enjoying them. Life goes on, he thought, and began to rebuild his previous impression of her, the lines stronger and with more colour.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ she said when he’d ordered some coffee. ‘I’d like you to tell me what you’ve found out about my husband.’
‘Nothing definite. We’re still looking—’
‘Please.’ She touched him on the arm and left her hand there. ‘When your colleagues came yesterday to tell me you’d found Mark, they seemed remote. You’re not going to be remote too, are you? Tell me what you’re thinking and I’ll see if I can help you.’ As though this was some business to be transacted.
He told her Jim Austin was dead and she asked if they knew who’d killed him. When he said they didn’t, she gave him a look he remembered from the first time he’d met her. It was an expression he’d seen on her mother’s face too, a combination of impatience and disappointment, as though the world had let her down. Again. He moved on, and summarised what they knew. Told her about the autopsy report.
Emily winced. ‘Do you think he was a drug addict?’
‘We’re looking at all possibilities, it’s what we have to do. At the moment a lot of stuff about the drugs doesn’t make sense.’
She was frowning, looking almost agitated, and Troy wondered if McIver had done the right thing, telling him to open up to her.
‘But you found the pethidine in our flat.’
‘His fingerprints weren’t on either of the boxes. It’s possible they were planted. Did he have any friends among the medical staff?’
‘No.’
‘None came to your place?’
‘He asked half a dozen to the party last week, your colleagues have the guest list. Professional contacts, not friends. He believed he should keep a certain distance.’ She sighed. ‘He should never have taken that job.’
Not what she’d said last time.
‘I thought it was a good one.’
‘It was a dead end. In terms of career progression, Mark’s next move should have been back to something more operational, even if the pay was less. With the ombudsman’s job, he risked being stuck on the audit side of things for the rest of his life. You don’t get to the top that way.’
‘Didn’t Mark see that?’
‘He could be blind, and Bellamy charmed him. The package was very good.’ She looked impatient again, hard. ‘He blamed me.’
‘For the mistake?’
‘For being right, for having predicted it. A few weeks ago, he told me I was too perfect for him.’ She blinked. ‘So you see, our marriage was not as ideal as it looked.’ She appeared to be entirely serious. ‘He’d never said that before.’
‘Well, maybe it didn’t mean all that much.’
‘I knew my husband. It was a bad time. He’d never really failed before. He’d had performance anxiety, of course, but most of us do at our level.’ She took out a pure white handkerchief and gently blew her nose. ‘That’s why we’re so good at our jobs, because we care.’ She looked at Troy to see if he understood.
He realised that she really did think she was special, and that he had nothing in common with her at all. He’d rarely felt this about another person. But then, he’d never met anyone this young and successful.
She said, ‘He was an anxious man, flawed, he’d been on antidepressants to get him through university. I bet his family didn’t tell you that?’ Troy said nothing. ‘There’s his brother, you know, who’s not well. Crazy guy.’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘It was a very claustrophobic home and there was pressure on Mark. There were issues with his father.’
‘Well, at least he had one.’ It just slipped out; he wished it hadn’t.
‘What?’ she said, nodded. ‘Yeah. But Dad and me had a good relationship while he was alive. That’s something precious, no one can take that from me.’
‘Right.’ Troy wondered if she’d been in therapy. Perhaps she had a life coach.
‘Someone like me, coming from outside their world, Mark thought I wouldn’t pick up the signals about all the problems in their family.’
Troy dared not speak. She put away the handkerchief and looked around the room. As though she wanted to call the waitress, but there was nothing she needed. The waitress came anyway, and Emily asked for the bill.
When the woman had gone, Troy said, ‘So you’re saying Mark was depressed?’
She blinked and seemed to wake up. ‘He was on top of it, he had an MBA and could deal with problems.’
Normal service had been resumed.
‘What makes David Saunders tick?’ he said.
‘Very capable man, although he opposed the creation of Mark’s job,’ she said. ‘But Mark won him around, he was very good like that. David should have got the CEO’s job. He came to our house for dinner. Told us all about a ward management system he’d bought from Britain for St Thomas’. Very exciting. They’re testing it, it’s supposed to save five per cent off their budget.’
Must have been one hell of a dinner party.
‘Mark said there were politics involved,’ she went on. ‘David bought the system before Alan Bellamy became CEO, and now Alan doesn’t want to go ahead with it. But David’s already done a pilot, he thinks it’s fantastic and wants to roll it out across the hospital. If he can do that and it works, it’ll be huge.’
‘Does it work?’
‘It’s from the NHS, called BRISTOL. Mark thought it had great potential.’
The bill came and Emily put some money on the table. Troy asked for the name of Mark’s brother, and she told him it was Charles. Troy recalled reading in an investigator’s note on [email protected] that he’d been interviewed, had an alibi for the time of Mark’s death.
‘If Mark was taking pethidine,’ she said, ‘that would explain all those missing hours?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’d need to meet his—his dealer . . .’
‘Maybe he needed somewhere to take it,’ Troy said.
‘To shoot up, you mean?’
He nodded. ‘Maybe in the office, then just sit in a park for an hour or two. Or book into a motel overnight.’
‘I would have seen the marks. On his arm.’ Troy nodded. That was a problem with the pethadine theory.
She stood up and seemed to gather her strength again, getting back to where she’d been when he’d arrived. ‘So maybe he was having an affair. Either way, it seems I didn’t know my husband very well.’ She sounded furious.
Don’t be so angry about it, he felt like telling her. Be upset. But that was not his job.
Nineteen
Leila is on the phone to
Julie, she’s rung to ask her to return the bottle of Nembutal. But before they can get to that, Julie needs to know all about the funeral, and now she is crying, so sorry to have missed it.
‘I know you had to be with Carl,’ Leila says, prodding gently. ‘I guess it was something really important.’
There are sobs, and Leila is glad it’s a phone call and not face to face. Ever since this morning’s encounter with Ben in the liquor store, she has felt shattered. She needs to grieve for her mother, but now this is mixed with a fear the police might call her at any moment. It is a sort of pollution.
‘To be honest,’ she says, ‘I thought Carl might have wanted to come to the funeral himself. Mum liked him very much.’
More tears, and then Julie says, ‘He’s a good man really.’
‘So what did you guys get up to?’
‘Oh you know. It’s just, he really cares. When someone dies, he gets a bit strange. He asked me to give you his apologies.’
More tears, and Leila sees this is going to take some time, so she sits down and thinks about Julie and Carl, really thinks about them, for the first time. Until now she’s regarded them as Stuart’s acolytes, it was how she first met them, how they were presented to her. Big people, a little slow, the man with a few ideas and a scraping of intelligence, Julie a plain, healthy young woman, just happy to be with him.
Or maybe, she realises, this was just how she wanted to see them, assuming nurses would be entirely subordinate to a doctor. Perhaps this was not how it was. And maybe, just as she’s accepted Stuart needs to be a bit odd to do what he does, she should have thought more about the oddness of Julie and Carl. At this point the class thing definitely kicks in: Stuart exists in her mind as a human being, but she has no idea what sort of person Julie really is, or how to talk to her about anything except caring for her mother. Twenty years ago, Leila thinks, I could talk to almost anyone. But not now.
‘What does he do when someone dies?’ she says. Then, when there is no reply except a gulping sob, ‘You don’t sound so good. Does he do anything to you?’
‘No, we’re—I want to get married and have children, I’m almost thirty.’
Leila relaxes. ‘He doesn’t want to get married?’
‘I’m going to ask him. You’re right. I have to ask him.’
Right about what? she wonders. But all she says is, ‘Good luck. Look, I’m ringing about something else. I need to get that bottle from you so I can give it to Stuart.’
‘I’ll give it to him.’
‘The fact is, he seemed a bit surprised you had it.’
Pause.
Then Julie’s voice changes. ‘He treats us like shit sometimes, you know he thinks we’re stupid.’
Leila runs a hand through her hair, and feels the same as she had with Ben this morning. As though some part of her has suddenly come away. ‘Can I come over now?’
‘Where?’
‘To your house. I can get it and take it over to him.’
‘I said I’ll fucking give it to him.’
There is silence while Leila surveys the ruin of what she thought she knew.
Then Julie says, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just so emotional. Will you forgive me? Please?’
Leila relaxes slightly. ‘Of course. But I need to get the bottle now.’
‘It’s the stress. I am so sorry. Carl hasn’t been like this since our first time, in Brisbane. I’ll ask him tonight and call you tomorrow.’
Leila has no interest in Julie’s sex life, if that is what this is about, but she has to clarify something. ‘You mean Carl has the bottle?’
‘He’s got a place to keep things safe.’
Leila feels a spurt of anger, and realises she is feeling the way she felt all those years ago, when her dealing arrangements went awry. So much of trouble is unnecessary, if only people would act in their own best interests.
Julie says, ‘It’s okay though. I’ll get it and bring it round—I’d love to see your lovely house again. I just loved all the room there. I went down to the cellar. All those bottles of wine!’
Not many houses in Sydney have a cellar; theirs was one of the reasons her parents bought Ingleholme, because her father’s hobby was wine. When he died twelve years ago, Peter urged their mother to sell the wine collection. Elizabeth was vague about most things in the months following Hugo’s death, but she’d been adamant the wine should stay, over a thousand bottles in racks and boxes. She didn’t even drink red wine, but it was a memorial to Hugo.
‘So, you’ll come tomorrow morning?’ Leila says to Julie, who has gone off on a tangent and is reminiscing about Elizabeth’s last days.
‘I can’t. What about the weekend?’
‘Stuart says he needs it urgently. Can we come over to your place tomorrow morning at ten?’ Dropping Stuart in it.
‘You’d have time to stay?’ Julie says, swinging over to the idea. ‘I know I don’t have a place like yours but I make good coffee. You’ll have a coffee?’
‘Of course.’
‘If you could just wait for the weekend.’
Leila closes her eyes, thinking of her clean flat in Rose Bay, her well-ordered job. Next week she will be back there.
‘I don’t think it will wait,’ she says. ‘What’s the address?’
Julie tells her and she writes it down. It is halfway across the city and she withholds a sigh. But the thought of the precious bottle keeps her firm. She owes Stuart a great deal, one more simple death.
‘What sort of biscuits do you like, Leila?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘With your coffee.’
‘I really—’
‘I’ll get some Tim Tams. Everyone likes them.’
Then she is crying again, and Leila has to ask what’s wrong.
‘It’s Carl.’ More sobs. ‘Oh, Leila.’ For a moment, Leila fears the floodgate might open, there and then, but with a gurgling sound, Julie goes on, ‘Would you mind if I had a talk with you, tomorrow morning? Someone like you, with your experience, you might be able to help me. I’m being controlled. I don’t have a life anymore. There are terrible things—’
‘Of course,’ Leila says quickly. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’ She hangs up and takes a deep breath. With any luck, in the morning Julie will have lost her need to talk about her problems.
Twenty
It was evening when Troy reached the hospice, and he drove around for almost fifteen minutes looking for a place to park. There was a white Commodore with Commonwealth plates waiting out front whenever he passed the hospice entrance, indicating a federal politician was inside. As he crawled through the narrow streets he thought with foreboding of the coming visit. He’d have to talk with Luke about this guy Napoli’s claim on television.
Out of the car it was too hot for this time of day. He wished he could remove his gun and put it in the boot, but of course you couldn’t.
His phone rang. To his surprise it was Anna’s mother. They hadn’t spoken since Anna left, except in the early weeks when he’d call their place and Mary would answer and tell him Anna didn’t want to talk.
‘Nicholas?’ She sounded even louder than usual.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You leave my daughter for a whore and then you ask what’s wrong!’ And off she went.
Wondering what this was all about, Troy pulled the phone away from his ear. He’d almost reached the hospice, so he turned and walked slowly back the way he’d come, letting the sound of Mary’s voice evaporate in the sticky air. She’d always been talkative, too emotional for Troy, but Anna had acted as a buffer in the past and it hadn’t been so bad.
The word ‘whore’ was getting a lot of use. It was as though she was drunk, except he knew she didn’t touch alcohol. She talked fo
r several minutes without pause about how he’d wrecked her daughter’s marriage, abandoned his son. He recalled the time he’d flown up to Brisbane to see Anna, who’d been out. Mary had been there with Matt; she’d been so angry then she’d said almost nothing. Maybe she’d just woken up this morning, decided she had to let loose.
He stared at the phone, not sure what to do. He was prepared to make an effort with her, she was his wife’s mother after all, but he couldn’t figure out a way in. Mary’s voice, her tone, was rising. Soon he just wanted her to stop.
‘Did she tell you we hadn’t slept together for two years?’ he said.
She kept talking, so after a while he said it again, louder. A woman passing on the street gave him a look and he turned and walked back towards the hospice, trying to maintain a distance from the other pedestrians.
‘What?’ Mary barked. She sounded like a stage Indian. It was a thought he’d always suppressed, that both Anna’s parents spoke like characters in an old British comedy. Now he admitted it, and something inside of himself relaxed. ‘Don’t talk to me about that sort of thing,’ she said. ‘It’s not fit for my ears, your private business.’
‘Mary,’ he began; she kept talking but he told her anyway, wanting her to know what their marriage had been like after Matt was born. They talked at the same time for a while, and he wondered if she could hear what he was saying, was taking it in on some level. Or if she was just blocking it out.
He stopped, and about half a minute later she did too.
‘Mary,’ he said, ‘is there any reason you’ve rung me now?’
‘I just want you to know, you have destroyed my daughter’s life.’
He was worried: Anna had been depressed last year, on medication.
‘Has anything happened? Is she all right?’
‘Of course they’re all right. They’re inside, preparing the dinner. But no, everything is wrong!’ She hung up.
Looking around, he saw the entrance to the hospice twenty metres away. People were dying here, for Christ’s sake. You had to wonder how Mary would react if her precious daughter was run over by a car. In terms of grief, what more would she have to give? But still, it was a mess, and a lot of that he just had to accept. He’d call Anna after dinner, but right now he needed to make this visit.
The Simple Death Page 14
