by Lee Hayton
‘If you can remember, what were the papers dealing with?’
‘They were concerned with research into the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes,’ she turned to the courtroom, the lecturer within her awakened, ‘These are the genes that have been identified as having strong ties to familial breast, ovarian, prostrate and lung cancer. If you have a mutation of these genes, then your body doesn’t produce a protein that offers protection against some cancers forming. Because of this you’re far more likely to contract cancer.’
There’s another pause while the pathologist scans her audience to assess understanding.
‘It’s the reason Angelina Jolie had her breasts removed,’ she tries. There are a few more nods of recognition at that one.
The coroner frowns. ‘These were test results?’
‘No. They were just research papers. I didn’t see very much of them, but they were referencing a study that Dr Atlas had performed last decade. It’s been widely discredited.’
I look carefully at my mother while she’s saying this, but there’s no reaction to see. She’s looking at a pad that Christine has made notes on, but I don’t really understand why she thinks that a summary of schizoaffective disorder is more important than what’s happening up on the stand.
‘Dr Atlas?’
The pathologist actually sighs. Well, if there weren’t know-it-all pedants in the world how would the rest of us cope?
‘He was a research scientist from Tennessee. He specialised in breast cancer. There was a period he worked closely with Marie-Claire King, and he’d continued on with research on how to use the genes they’d found to devise a cure.’
‘For breast cancer?’
She shook her head. ‘For the protein deficiency. Where the BRCA1 and BRCA2 don’t produce the anti-cancer proteins that are usually produced. He claimed to have simulated a protein that acted in the same capacity. It would basically have reduced the risk of cancer in patients with the mutated genes back to normal levels.’
There was a pause in the room, but the pathologist spoke again to break it. ‘It was a load of nonsense of course. They found that out after his death. He’d fabricated the whole thing, the test results, the compounds. It was a smokescreen he was using to generate donations and grant money.’
‘And the papers you saw were referencing this,’ the coroner waved his right hand, trying to find the right word. ‘This research?’
‘Yes. I didn’t get a very good look of course. I didn’t realise it would be important.’
She directed a glare straight at DSS Smith, who just looked away.
‘I’m sorry to press you on this, but in the absence of the actual documents…’
She closed her eyes and sat back in the chair. She didn’t open them as she continued to talk. ‘There were results that I think were reproducing the original test scope. Or what the test scope should have been and wasn’t. But I just didn’t look very far through them.’
She opened her eyes again and shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t tell you any more.’
The coroner nodded. ‘This doctor, you said he’d died?’
‘Yes,’ the pathologist said offhand as she stood from the chair. ‘He died in a plane crash. In New Zealand, oddly enough. The West Coast.’
Daina 2004
I ran.
I cut through Nunweek Park and emerged onto the street. I kept running until I was outside the fire station. All of four minutes. I slowed to a walk to try to catch my breath. There were pinpoint flashes of light in my vision. After a few minutes’ walk, they began to fade.
I couldn’t see anybody following me. I couldn’t see any suspicious vehicles in the road. But I doubted that Mr Fa’amoe had either. At least if I pretended that someone was hot on my trail and they weren’t it wouldn’t matter. The other way…
There was a steady stream of traffic as the cars ferrying kids home from school melded into the cars ferrying adults home from work. I walked until I met the corner of Memorial Avenue and Greers Road. If I’d been thinking straight, I could’ve walked through to Northlands Mall and been safe in the throng of people.
There was a rattle in the front of my backpack. Where I’d stored the test tube safely away from harm. I pulled it open as I walked along. My actions interrupted by a glance here, a glance there. A movement out of the corner of my eye and I spun, but there was just an elderly gent trying to walk with the aid of a walking stick and a dog. I don’t know which impeded his progress more.
Loose change was tinkling against the glass. I fished it out, some sticking in the corners as though now it had drawn my attention to its existence it was playing hard to get.
There was $1.50 in total. I walked to the closest bus stop and sat down to wait. I could get into the central city, or I could catch the Orbiter and get to Westfield mall in Riccarton. Either way there would be crowds, and crowds should be safety.
‘Child’s fare, thanks,’ I said as I tipped my handful into the change scoop.
The driver looked me up and down. A wave of exhaustion ran up my spine, making my legs feel close to collapse. If he didn’t accept me at a reduced fare, I couldn’t afford to travel at all.
He pursed his lips and shook his head, weighing up my school uniform against my height, but a ticket span out of the machine. I ripped it off and moved down the length of the bus quickly. Before he could reassess.
There was a double seat in the raised area at the back. I nearly fell as the bus took off, the jolt of motion almost overbalancing me. But I fell into a seat instead. I pulled on the headrest in front to support me as I levered into the seat closest to the window. There were two men running. Along the footpath behind me.
My blood ran cold then hot. Hot then cold. They were both wearing suits. One was limping as he ran, favouring his left foot over his right. Like he’d recently been hurt. Like he’d been in an accident.
They did not look like the type of men to run for a bus.
They fell away from me as the bus drove the length of its route down Memorial Avenue, and then turned off towards Canterbury University. A group of students, fresh from a lecture, spilt into the grounds and began to toss around a Frisbee.
The bus filled up as we grew closer to Riccarton Mall. There were a rag-bag of pupils and students, but mostly workers trying to navigate public transport on their way home or to errands.
I joined the mass exodus when the bus stopped at Riccarton. Moving as quickly as I could, I crossed the road, weaving through stalled traffic, and entered the mall through a café that smelled of coffee and cinnamon.
My mouth watered as my stomach clenched in pain. Not that it mattered, I had no money left.
I sat on a bench in the central mall and watched the crowds of people around me. No one stood out. No one didn’t belong. I started to relax.
And then a hand clamped down hard on my shoulder.
Mrs Harrow 2014
It was nearly Rachael’s turn to take the stand. It would be hard, but perhaps not as hard as listening to everyone else had been. Her life had been lonely since Daina had disappeared. For long periods of time Rachael had almost managed to convince herself that maybe she really had run away, run to somewhere good, could almost see her daughter living the great life that she’d built without her.
After the disappearance, Graham had been useless to her. But then he’d always been a bit of cleavage on a bull. When Davy had died, drowned in a puddle while they each thought the other was looking out for him, she’d expected they would lean on each other to get through. It wasn’t even three months past his funeral when Graham decided that grief was best got through by fucking another woman. A woman who didn’t have half the features of his dead child to look away from.
Rachael had always thought of herself as too clever to make the mistakes everyone else made. Genius level IQ, always knowing the answer. It left her unprepared to face the fact that she was as inept at living as everyone she’d poured scorn upon. Hard to use intelligence to combat grief, t
o combat abandonment.
Daina was always there to be looked after. A younger version of her darling little Davy. Too many questions, too many demands. When Rachael started to drink heavily, at least it’d taught her self-reliance.
She shifted on the hard bench. It bit into the backs of her thighs, and caused her lower legs to fall asleep and her upper legs to grumble they were doing all the work.
The plane crash had scared the shit out of her. She’d been full of threats and retaliation on the day, spitting into the face of the man who’d put the fear of the loss of a child back in her heart. One child already taken, how dare you? How dare you?
For a while Rachael had been still with indecision; report everything and face danger head on, or just leave it alone and let it fade away. Time was making the decision for her. And then the picture arrived. No stamp, hand delivered.
It was a photo of Daina walking home alone from school. They were only a few blocks from the Primary School, and after Rachael had held her hand to lead her there and back for a week, Daina had been delighted to make her own way instead.
Walking home. Alone.
I can get her. I can still get her.
She made her decision.
Coroner’s Court 2014
When my mother takes the stand, there’s a lull in the noise levels of the room. Not respect, exactly, but care. Due to her position in relation to me.
There’s little she can add to my final days. Not seeing me for days on end isn’t exactly an informative stance. I stick around for a while, but it’s going nowhere. I wander away.
There’s a television in a side room. This is the one that my mother retreats to when it all gets too much. Open to the public, but not too open. A place for people to gather themselves before, and compose themselves after.
‘He’ll reserve the decision,’ the Grey Man tells me as he walks in, ‘There’s no way he’s going to get to the end of your mommy’s speech and then render a verdict straight away.’
Whatever. The longer it all goes on, the less it matters to me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everyone just saying whatever makes them look good. And then my mother, so desperate to tell her warts-and-all truth.
‘They could still find the documents,’ he says. I look at him critically. He should know better than that. I know better than that, and he knows what I know.
He shrugs in response to my glare. ‘They still exist somewhere.’
Yes, they still exist somewhere. No one set fire to them, no one shattered the glass phial to let the simulated protein spill away. Someone wanted insurance against future finger-pointing. But it’s not coming their way. No one even knows they exist. A ghost. A phantom. A myth.
And a decade may seem like nothing to the Earth. A decade may seem like nothing to the Universe. But to a roomful of human beings, a decade is too long to start chasing up leads that were buried deep to start with.
My mother is still going on. I wander back through and watch her for a while. Her teeth are the thing that give away her past the most. Age may have brought her a serene beauty, but the dentures – no matter how well-fitted – draw her cheeks in too deeply. They tell the story of use and abuse. Of years of ill-living that no amount of yoga and self-discipline can wipe away.
‘When did you first notice that your daughter was missing?’
Oh good. Wouldn’t want to miss this recollection of a drunken haze.
‘The school had rung early in the week. I knew that Daina was around because her clothes kept changing. I could hear her running in and out even if I could never catch up with her.’
My mother comes to a halt and pushes the side of her cheek in with her middle knuckle. She’s using her dentures to bite through the top layer of skin on the inside of her mouth. She’ll nibble at it, wearing and tearing, then swallow and start again. A remedy for boredom expanded into a habit.
‘I was still taking clients. There was one, he was always interested to know what my daughter was up to. I shouldn’t have allowed him into the house really. But he was a regular and he was a good payer.
‘He was the one who noticed that she was truly gone. He asked me about her, and when I said she was around; he pointed out the ways that he knew she wasn’t.’
She laughs, but there are tears in her eyes as well. ‘If he hadn’t been creeping around my house and looking, it may have taken a bit longer. But the school rang on the Monday or Tuesday; he noticed she was gone by the Thursday.’ She bites away at the inside of her cheek again, pressing her forefinger below her lower lip so she can nibble across the bottom in a line.
‘I didn’t believe him at first. When he’d gone, I checked her room and looked through the whole house. I thought I’d find evidence that would contradict him. But there wasn’t.
‘I hoped that she’d just stayed a few nights overnight somewhere. Her backpack was gone. She didn’t go anywhere without that grubby thing. I sat in the living room and waited for her to come home.’
I wonder how long I lasted while she was waiting. There wasn’t that much of a window of opportunity to reach me, and considering how long it took anyone to find me in the end, the reporting time didn’t matter. Doesn’t matter now.
But still, I count back the hours, the ones I can remember. I count back and think of what I tried to do to get out of there. How many times I picked at things that were never going to give, picked my fingertips bloody. How I’d kicked and yelled. Even when I was told to be quiet.
Kicked and yelled and screamed in full-blown panic. While my mother had to have a client tell her that I was missing.
‘When it got around to Friday, I knew he was right. She wasn’t coming back. I went to the police to report her missing, but they wouldn’t really take an interest. A fifteen-year-old from a bad home. They just thought she’d run away.’
And maybe they didn’t want the old drug addict stinking up their pristine lobby. Maybe if you’d cleaned yourself up, they would’ve paid more attention. But no, you had to make it so obvious that you were someone that any teenager would’ve run a million miles away from.
‘I called Graham in the end. I couldn’t think of what else to do. It was news to me that she’d been in trouble at school. He should’ve told me.’ She wipes at the corner of her eyebrow, trying to still a twitch. She gives a little smirk. ‘Although I understand why he wouldn’t want to.’
The self-discovery arriving a bit too late for me.
‘I stopped using while I was waiting for her to come home that weekend. I gave up drinking a week later. I answered the phone once so drunk that the person on the other end hung up on me. Even in my state, I realised that wasn’t going to help Daina any, so I stopped.’ She laughs; a tight hard sound. ‘I found out later that it’s one of the most dangerous things you can do. Stop drinking without medical supervision. But nothing bad happened.’
My mother shrugs her shoulder. ‘Nothing apart from the bad you’d expect. Graham’s comments got me worried all over again, so I went down to the school and talked to Patty in the office. She was the one who got the police concerned enough to really start looking. She pointed out that the bullying had been against my daughter, not caused by her.’
She coughs, and rearranges herself on the stand. ‘Patty was the one who suggested that the police look into Mr Bond.
‘That worried me. That Daina had been harassed and bullied, for months, but had never felt confident enough to tell me. Some of the things that happened…’ My mother shakes her head. ‘You don’t expect your daughter to have to go through that at all, and to go through it alone.’
‘Patty came along with me to the police station again and again. She helped get the message through that with the end-of-year examinations about to start up in earnest, there’s no way that Daina would’ve moved on. She was smart; she passed exams whether she studied or not, and she’d inquired about scholarships based on her results. She wasn’t going to run away and risk her future, not when she’d lived with the status quo at home fo
r so long.’
‘I’ve read through the police reports at the time, and they’re submitted into evidence,’ the coroner interjected. ‘I can assure you that the police were looking for your daughter from the moment she was reported missing.’
My mother waves away his comment. ‘There’s looking and there’s looking. And what they were doing before Patty got involved wasn’t nearly enough.’
I find it strange even with all of this knowledge that the woman who started off as my nemesis became instead my champion. Look at her sitting there. Still prim, still with her hands neatly folded in her lap and her legs together. Not crossed, only whores cross their legs – or women who like their calves to look fat. She still looks like she wouldn’t take any prisoners, or suffer any fools.
I wonder if I’d survived, if I would’ve developed some of her same defence mechanisms. Wearing tweed like armour plate. Waving my wit like a sword.
There are worse things I could aspire to become.
This is all very boring and depressing. I don’t understand why the coroner is allowing it anyway. He’s meant to be determining my cause of death. My mother’s belated discovery that I was missing in no way contributed to that. It just stopped any chance there was of preventing my eventual death. And that only if I’d been found.
And let’s face it. Both the Grey Man and I went to great lengths to make sure that I wouldn’t be. Mum being a drug user didn’t contribute to that.
So maybe that’s the only part of the story left to tell. There’s no correction to be made here because there’s no testimony to correct. Only I know what happened. There're a couple of spooks who could lend perspective. If they were found and were willing.
They’re as likely to make an appearance in this courtroom as the papers I tried so hard to find and keep safe. And for the same reason.
So while my mother witters on the stand about how terrible she was – no contradiction arriving anytime soon from this quarter – I’ll take you through what happened to me while she was still waiting to notice. Waiting to notice I was gone. Waiting to notice I was in trouble. Waiting to notice I was dead.
