The newsreader appeared again.
‘On Wednesday, police searched four properties in Adelaide, Perth and Darwin, arresting and charging eleven people with possessing a commercial quantity of drugs. A precursor to the heist was the arrest on 24 December of two people alleged to be among the group’s ringleaders. The pair were apprehended at Perth International Airport attempting to board a flight for Brazil.’
An image appeared on the screen: two mug shots. One of Marcelo, the other of an olive-skinned young woman, beautiful despite her scowl.
‘Thirty-three-year-old Australian Mark Ferris, of Bowden in Adelaide’s northern suburbs, and his Brazilian-born wife Liliana, thirty, are among seventeen people accused of operating the international syndicate.’
The camera cut to footage of the pair being escorted from a sandstone courthouse and into a waiting police car. Marcelo, wearing aviator sunglasses, held a protective arm around Liliana’s shoulders while extending the other towards the camera.
‘No comment, you bastards,’ he called, as they were jostled by the media.
His accent was broad and unmistakably Australian.
The newsreader appeared again. ‘Mr and Mrs Ferris were the subject of fraud allegations aired last year on ABC TV’s Four Corners program, but they have never been charged. Police investigations continue.’
The background image shifted to the next item, China slow-down inevitable, as the newsreader refocused on her autocue.
Paula sat frozen.
No one else stirred.
Marcelo Fernandes.
Mark Ferris.
An Australian, not a Brazilian.
A drug smuggler, not a drug mule.
With his wife, Liliana.
Paula recalled the word ‘Lili’ tattooed on Marcelo’s chest.
Mark Ferris. A thirty-three-year-old fraudster from Adelaide.
The humiliation of it all.
How naive have I been?
Falling for every stock-standard Brazilian stereotype he’d ever conjured; the hip-swivelling, horse-riding, lady-charming sex god—with a Brazilian wife to help him perfect his act.
She’d wanted to be convinced by Marcelo Fernandes.
She’d needed to be.
‘You alright?’ Sid whispered, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and passing it to her.
She buried her face in it, even though she wasn’t crying. She wanted to hide from the world.
Hamish stood up and began pacing the room.
‘Farken Frank’s a . . . pig. A bloody undercover copper. I knew he was cleverer than your average blackfella.’
‘Oh, Dad.’ Caitlin and Lachie chorused.
‘And . . . my God,’ Hamish continued. ‘They said a Belgian backpacker in Adelaide tipped off police. That was stinky bloody Sasha! He called the coppers on me, that strange bastard. He said he would, and he bloody did!’ His eyes were saucer-like. ‘Then I must’ve led the pigs to Mark Ferris, without even meaning to. Yalata Roadhouse, Eucla, Norseman, Darwin.’
Paula could hear Hamish blathering, but she wasn’t paying attention.
I had unprotected sex with a conman.
The words revolved in her head.
Unprotected sex. Conman.
‘I never picked he was Aussie,’ she heard Lachie murmur to his sister. ‘Did you?’
His conspiratorial tone made Paula look up. ‘What?’ Her children appeared decidedly cagey. ‘Did you two know about any of this?’
Lachie looked alarmed. ‘Well, we didn’t know he was Australian, Mum. But, uh . . . Catie found some drugs in the caravan at Norseman.’
He glanced at his sister in an apologetic way. ‘Honesty’s the best policy, sis.’
Paula turned to Caitlin. ‘Is this true?’
Her daughter nodded. ‘It was when I cleaned out the caravan in Norseman. Remember?’
‘Where was I?’ asked Sid, looking utterly confused.
‘Setting a dingo trap with Marcelo—I mean Mark,’ replied Lachie. ‘And Mum was asleep.’
‘Asleep?’ Hamish shot a reproachful look at Paula. ‘So, Catie found some drugs. What happened next, son?’
Lachie shrugged. ‘Well, we waited a few hours, until the end of the karaoke. Mum was already asleep . . .’
Hamish glared at Paula again.
‘I went to talk to Marcelo and Catie hid in the caravan with Mum’s phone,’ Lachie continued. ‘I told him that we knew about his stash and he should leave within a day. And that if he didn’t agree, Catie was watching and would call the police right away.’
Hamish nodded with a satisfied look that said, Atta boy!
‘You threatened him?’ Paula waved feebly at the television, remembering the size of the drug haul. Marcelo-Mark was leading a syndicate.
Caitlin and Lachie looked at each other.
‘We didn’t want you to get hurt, Mum,’ explained Lachie. ‘We just wanted him to go quietly. We could see you really liked him.’
Hamish made a harrumphing sound.
‘But what drugs did you find, Caitlin?’ Paula asked, weak at the very thought.
‘Cocaine I guess.’ Caitlin didn’t seem too perturbed. ‘I tried to move his surfboard bag under the junk seat when I was cleaning. It was way too heavy.’
The junk seat was the storage area under the cushion-covered seat in the kitchenette. Initially a place for storing Monopoly, chess and other family games, it had soon become a repository for infrequently used items like the bicycle pump and the car jack. Lifting up its heavy wooden lid was such a chore, no one ever bothered to do it. Marcelo had brought his surfboard with him on the trip, but after their first surfing safari at Cactus Beach, he’d simply strapped the board to the ute’s roof racks and stored its cover under the junk seat.
Junk seat indeed, Paula thought.
‘I guess Mark didn’t count on Caitlin’s cleaning fetish.’ Lachie sniggered.
Paula could well remember the children cleaning out the caravan at Norseman, after Lachie discovered her almost kissing Marcelo. She’d been trying to find a way to talk to her son, but he’d avoided her all afternoon. When her father and Marcelo had gone off to set a dingo trap, Paula had dozed off. While she was sleeping, Caitlin had obviously found more than she bargained for.
‘I can’t believe you confronted him,’ Paula said.
Lachie looked pleased with himself. ‘But he left, didn’t he? Put on a big show about his appendix. But we knew what he was up to.’ He smiled at Catie. ‘Trying to get to Perth fast. Took his backpack full of drugs and just disappeared.’
She suddenly remembered how Marcelo had lain in the caravan all the way to Perth, supposedly in terrible pain. He’d obviously retrieved the surfboard bag and transferred its contents to his backpack. Which, on reflection, had seemed rather heavy as she’d helped him drag it across the hospital car park.
‘But I don’t understand why you didn’t say anything.’ Paula looked at her father, appealing for his support. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me or Gramps? My God, this is becoming a theme in your behaviour, Caitlin. I could have reported Marcelo . . . Mark . . . to the police in Perth.’
And not made love to him in Darwin, she thought.
‘But if we’d done that—’ Caitlin chewed her lip—‘you would’ve called off the trip and sent us back to school. We were having heaps of fun—and you looked amazing, Mum. You were so different. It was like we had the real you back.’
‘Mark went quickly,’ added Lachie. ‘We had no idea he’d turn up again in Darwin.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘When he did, we got rid of him as soon as we could, by . . . you know, heading home with Dad.’ Lachie shot a slightly guilty look in the direction of his father. ‘We just knew you’d follow us, Mum.’
Paula couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That her children had kept crucial information from her, about a potentially dangerous criminal in their midst, on the basis of her emotional fragility? Then, on Marcelo’s unexpected return, they’d rescued her from his clutches by de
ftly playing her emotions and departing with their father? Here she was, thinking she was running the trip, when in fact they’d been managing her. They’d been manipulating both of them, Hamish and Paula, like marionettes.
‘Yeah, why did Mark come back?’ mused Lachie, as if he and Caitlin were the only ones in the room.
‘I thought he liked Mum,’ said Caitlin. ‘But he actually had a wife. That’s so gross.’
Paula’s face was aflame; she could feel herself heating up, recalling how she and Marcelo had made love in the Botanic Gardens. If she’d known he’d had a wife—a beautiful Brazilian one, at that—she would have made different choices. If she’d realised he was Mark Ferris, an Aussie fraudster from Bowden, she never would have wound up in the position she had.
Would she?
Hamish stared at Paula, his mouth working quietly, making her squirm.
‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘This is all too much information for a boofhead like me. I need some time to think.’ He walked to the kitchen and picked up his phone. ‘It’s Friday-night beers and Doggo’s waiting. See you later.’
The front door slammed behind him.
Paula hung her head, unable to look at anyone.
After several moments’ silence, Sid patted her shoulder. ‘Steady on, Paula. We’ll find out more soon enough. Why don’t you come and have a glass of wine with me? Just one. It’ll do you good.’ He stood up from the sofa with some difficulty. ‘I, for one, am completely bamboozled.’ Paula followed him, as if on autopilot. Then, suddenly, she turned towards the lounge room. ‘Hey, kids—want to come and have Drinkypoos with us, like old times?’
Her children looked at her as if she was deranged.
‘Teen Survivor’s on now,’ said Lachie, changing the channel with the remote.
Paula felt relieved, somehow, that they were still behaving in slightly predictable ways.
In the kitchen, she pulled up a stool next to her father. ‘Why didn’t you say something to me, Dad?’
‘Well, I didn’t know. I thought he was a fine young man. A bit rough around the edges, maybe, but still a Brazilian gentleman.’
Paula nodded. ‘He was. I mean, he wasn’t Brazilian. But some of it had to be true. I mean, he could surf.’
She remembered watching Marcelo emerge, slick and shining, from the ocean.
‘And he was good at jiu-jitsu,’ added Sid. ‘And guitar.’
Paula nodded. ‘He had loads of charisma.’
‘Too right.’ Sid grinned. ‘Remember his duet with Caitlin in Norseman? That Dirty Dancing song? The locals had never seen anything like it.’
Paula also recalled how jealous she’d felt watching her daughter on stage with Marcelo. Her infatuation had been all-consuming, defeating her better judgment. But her children had uncovered the truth, in part. Certainly more than she had.
She took the only wine she had in the house—a bottle of red for cooking—from the kitchen bench and poured two glasses. She hadn’t consumed any alcohol since swearing off it in Perth, not even at Christmas and New Year. But this series of revelations was enough to push anyone off the wagon, she decided.
‘I wish Jamie was here,’ said Paula, thinking about her sister in Coffs Harbour, staying with Rick’s family for the rest of the summer. Had Jamie seen the nightly news too?
Sid took a long draught of wine, then suddenly snorted over his glass. Red liquid sprayed out of his nose and across the bench as he doubled over with laughter.
‘Fools, that’s what we’ve been. Prize-winning turkeys, plucked and roasted.’
‘The police won’t think it’s funny, Dad. We’re going to have to tell them everything, you know, or they might think we’re accomplices or something.’
Sid shook his head. ‘Frank must’ve worked out weeks ago that we’re clean as a whistle. You need to have intent to be an accomplice, or be taking a cut of the action. We were all just bystanders, you know, taken for a ride.’
In my case literally.
‘But what about Lachie and Catie?’ she protested. ‘I mean, they knew about the drugs. But they didn’t say anything, to protect me from my own emotions. Honestly.’
How have I so completely misjudged my children? When did I stop seeing them for what they truly are? They are agents, in their lives and mine. Making decisions that have affected the whole family.
The stark realisation of their independence rammed through her. ‘But they’re still just kids, Paula.’ Her father topped up her glass. ‘And I think that matters in a court of law.’
‘I hope so,’ she said, drawing a deep mouthful. ‘Because they’ve made some pretty far-reaching choices on behalf of all of us.’
And I’ve made some really stupid ones, she thought. Even stupider than Hamish.
I’m the one who needs to be tested for STDs.
She bowed her head.
Her father stood up from the bench. ‘It’ll be alright, Paula, I can feel it in my waters.’ He gave her an encouraging squeeze. ‘Now let’s chop the carrots, eh? It’s our turn to do dinner tonight.’
The realities of life remained, even amid the drama.
The counsellor at the sexual health clinic, a bearded hipster named Terence, explained about the HIV window period.
‘It can be anywhere from nine days to six months,’ he said, passing her an information booklet. ‘It just depends on your body and the HIV test that’s used. The point being, you can be infected with HIV for a while and you won’t test positive.’
Paula blanched. ‘You mean, I have to wait six months for a test?’
‘No, not that long.’ Terence checked his notes. ‘In light of your recent infection risk, we’ll do a physical and get some bloods done to investigate things like chlamydia, the hepatitis family, syphilis. Your unprotected intercourse was how long ago?’
‘Just over two weeks.’
‘Then we could do the HIV test in three months.’
Paula nodded, her eyes brimming.
What the hell had she done?
Taken her life in her hands, for temporary physical pleasure. Earning herself the longest three months of her life.
Terence said kindly, ‘I know how you feel—the waiting game is awful. But there’s just no point testing for HIV now.’ He removed a consent form from a folder. ‘Here, read this and sign it. Then we’ll get the other blood work done.’
She scanned the document, unable to focus on the words swimming before her eyes.
She marked the page with a biro.
‘Any questions?’ Terence asked.
‘My husband . . .’ Paula’s voice broke.
Doesn’t even know what I’ve done.
The counsellor nodded, his expression sympathetic. ‘You need to assume the worst and avoid sexual relations until you’ve had the results of the HIV test. You may well be infectious.’
Terence opened a drawer and removed a brochure, placing it on the table in front of her: Talking to your partner about your HIV status.
‘It’s a difficult conversation,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got to have it.’
His pager beeped from his belt.
‘I’ll take you across to pathology now. As soon as the results are in, I’ll call you. It usually takes one or two weeks. Here’s my business card, if you need to talk in the meantime.’
Paula looked at the shiny blue rectangle.
Terence D. Abbott. Senior Counsellor, Melbourne Sexual Health Clinic When they reached the door, Terence turned. ‘I know it’s not much help, Mrs McInnes, but there are plenty of people going through exactly what you’re going through right now.’
Paula doubted that somehow.
A fortnight later, as she was preparing dinner, Paula’s mobile rang.
It was the clinic.
She darted down the hallway and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
‘Mrs McInnes, it’s Terence Abbott here.’
She couldn’t even greet him properly.
‘The final blood results are in a
nd it’s good news. You’re all clear.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ The air rushed out of her lungs.
‘You still have to do the HIV test,’ he continued. ‘But in the absence of any other infection, it’s looking much less likely now. You can call me in a month or so to make the booking.’
‘Thank you so much, Terence,’ she said, ending the call.
She stood for a moment, shell-shocked, before walking slowly back to the kitchen.
‘What, Paula?’ asked her father, looking up from the casserole he was stirring on the stove.
Her telephone rang again.
‘Hang on, Dad,’ she said, lifting the phone to her ear. ‘Terence?’
A young male voice asked, ‘Is that Paula McInnes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Inspector Andrew Holmes here, WA Police. Do you have a moment?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘Go ahead.’
‘Earlier today one of our officers at Mandurah apprehended an unlicensed seventeen-year-old woman driving a yellow Toyota Echo registered in your husband’s name. We tried calling the mobile attached to the registration, but the number’s inactive. Your name was listed as a nominated operator.’
Her hatchback?
Hadn’t Hamish said it had broken down in Perth and couldn’t be fixed?
‘We assumed it was stolen, particularly as the young lady in question comes from a . . . complex background,’ the officer continued. ‘But she says your husband gave it to her, so we’re calling to check her story.’
Paula tried to make sense of it.
‘The young lady’s name is Lisel Fogarty. Do you know her?’
Lisel.
Paula’s mouth dropped open. ‘Uh, yes . . . we do.’
‘Did either you or your husband give her the car to keep?’
Her hands were trembling. ‘We were travelling through WA in December. The car was old . . .’
‘Did you give her the car?’ The officer sounded like he had pressing business elsewhere.
Wife on the Run Page 34
