After the Darkness

by Brown, Honey

  Instead, Bruce folded his arms across his chest and took a deep breath. His face was unreadable. I turned over things in my head. I thought about Finn’s bank balance and the cash deposits, the way Bridget had been so quiet and nervous throughout the interview, Finn’s lack of references, the coincidence of his workplace, his role as go-between. I thought about his attraction to me, the increasingly disturbing nature of his advances.

  ‘It can’t be …’

  ‘I see just by looking at your face that it can.’

  ‘Some things fit, but other things don’t. I’m trying to remember his pay slip … I didn’t do any of the usual checks. I suppose the pay slip could have been from a different place, and he could have got the job at Four Seasons after he came in that day.’

  Bruce took three rapid steps back, and stood at the end of the bed, staring at me from there. ‘You haven’t brought him out here, have you? Has he met our children?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Have you introduced him to our children or not?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. He hasn’t met the children.’

  ‘When were you going to tell me all this, Trudy? You find out Guy Grant is in Delaney and you don’t tell me? Why? There’s got to be a reason, other than you being worried about me getting angry. A killer is in my hometown watching my family, for Christ’s sake. Why wouldn’t I get angry? What sort of a man would I be if I didn’t get angry?’

  I pulled as far as I could away from him, even though he had already put himself a long way from me. ‘I’ve been confused, I can’t …’ My mind was a muddle of facts as well as a tangle of emotion. If it was true, and Finn was involved … It was like I’d let the octopus into the office, let it get comfortable and wrap its tentacles around everything. It wasn’t a figment of my imagination – the octopus was real.

  ‘We’re going to the police station,’ Bruce said, ‘and the kids can’t stay here alone. We’ll take them to your mother’s.’

  ‘Finn has met her,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe they shouldn’t go there.’

  Bruce’s face grew pale with anger. ‘He’s met your mother? You introduced him to your mother?’

  ‘It was at the office. It’s not how it sounds. ’

  ‘Okay, the kids will have to go to my parents’ place. Or has Finn met them too? Have you introduced him to everyone in the family? Are you sure you haven’t slept with him, Trudy? Tell me if you have.’

  ‘I haven’t. Before going anywhere we need to stop and think clearly about this. I need to have it right in my head. We can do some checks ourselves to see that Finn is who he says he is.’

  ‘I’m going around to see him.’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘You ring Sue Murdoch and tell her we’re going to the police about that call and I’m going around to see him, face to face. Even if he’s not Guy Grant’s puppet, he still saw Guy in the lobby – Finn’s a witness; he’s involved whether he likes it or not.’

  ‘He’s going to panic if you turn up there.’

  ‘He should panic.’

  There was no answer on Sue’s landline. I rang her mobile, which went straight through to her message bank. A sick feeling washed over me.

  Bruce came into the study. ‘You can’t get onto her, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m being paranoid … but Finn came into the office today while she was there. He offered her a coffee. He offered me one too. There was something about the way he did it … It reminded me of Reuben. And he left straight after she did.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Trudy, he was there when you found out about the recording? Sue’s probably in danger. We might be, too. We’ve got to get the kids out of here.’

  Things sped up then. They became physical and actual. On some level I had known they would. It was why I’d been avoiding telling my husband. Bruce brought authenticity to each thing he did. He left the bedroom, his voice was loud through the house. ‘Get up,’ he called to the children, ‘pack an overnight bag. You’re staying the night at your Nan and Pop’s.’

  There were the sounds of the children’s beds creaking, their doors opening, and their footsteps down the hall.

  ‘Your mother and I need to sort something out,’ was Bruce’s hasty explanation to them.

  I heard Summer and Renee whispering outside my door. I ventured out. My daughters were dressed in thin cotton nighties, their faces white from sleep.

  ‘Do we really have to go?’ Renee asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What are you and Dad fighting about?’

  Steven came down from upstairs, dressed in warm clothes. ‘Mum’s having an affair,’ he told the girls.

  ‘Steven!’ Bruce bellowed from the kitchen. He stormed down the hall. The children and I had created a logjam in the hallway. Bruce couldn’t get past without pushing through.

  ‘I heard you talking about it!’ Steven shouted over our heads at his father. ‘Don’t talk so loud if you don’t want us to know! His name is Finn. I heard you ask if he’s been here to the house.’

  ‘Mum?’ Renee said. ‘Are you leaving Dad for someone else?’

  ‘No one say another word!’ Bruce said. ‘Go and get your things together.’

  Summer’s fingers brushed against mine. Her face tipped to me. ‘Finn?’ she said. ‘The chef?’

  The softness of her touch, her quiet voice, the gentle creasing of her forehead, might well have been an explosion, a hand grenade going off.

  Bruce shoved through to us. He grabbed hold of Summer’s shoulders, spinning her to face him, trying not to squeeze her too tight, but squeezing her too tight all the same. He leaned down to look into her face.

  ‘How do you know him?’

  Summer glanced at me. She saw our panic. She grew panicked too. ‘He was … He was at the kitchen we went to with the school.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ she stuttered.

  ‘What did he say to you? Tell me!’

  ‘He said … He told me I was special. He said I had a talent.’

  There was a note of hurt in our little girl’s voice. She had believed him. Whether it was a coincidental encounter, an honest comment, hardly mattered. Bruce knelt on the hallway boards. He looked weakened. I knew all capacity for rational thought was leaving him. He posed the questions a parent never wants to ask their children, let alone their youngest and most fragile. ‘Did he frighten you? Did he touch you? Did he take you away from the other children?’

  ‘Yes,’ my daughter said, in answer to Bruce’s last question. Bruce rose to his feet.

  As a family we gathered in the kitchen. The cats sat watching. Their tails were curled in around their legs, twitching against the tops of their toes. Bruce pulled me into the pantry.

  ‘If you thought you’d seen Guy Grant there, why on earth would you let her go to the hotel?’

  ‘I didn’t even know she was going.’

  Bruce’s sudden distrust of me was evident in his eyes. He doubted everything about me now, even my appearance – my familiar face was a trick.

  ‘Why did he single out our daughter, Trudy? What if he was trying to take her?’

  ‘I’m worried too. I don’t like at all that he went near her. Something happened today, I didn’t want to add to things by telling you.’

  ‘Has he hurt you?’

  ‘All I wanted was to check if it was Guy Grant at the hotel. It seems like such a stupid thing to do now. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wanted to be sure, so I went to the hotel … with Finn. To check. He took me into a room. No,’ I said, seeing the hurt and fear that filled my husband’s eyes. ‘Please. We didn’t. I stopped him.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He wouldn’t let me leave.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He got me in a spare room, and … pushed me back on the bed. He knew I was frightened. It took a bit to get him to stop. ’

  Bruce put the car keys into my hand.

&nbs
p; ‘Take the children. I’m going straight around to the town-house. Which one is he in?’

  ‘Ring the police.’

  ‘Take the children to my parents’ place. Which one is he in?’

  I shook my head. ‘You can’t go around there, not like this.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll find out where he is myself.’ He stepped out of the pantry. He returned. ‘Don’t ring the police. Okay? I won’t forgive you if you do.’

  ‘Bruce, what are you going to do?’

  ‘It’s my family. I’m going to deal with this.’

  ‘Mum,’ Renee said in the car, ‘you’re frightening us. Summer says that man only kept her back from the others for a moment. He didn’t really scare her. She feels guilty now Dad’s so upset. Mum, shouldn’t you stop him?’

  Reflected in the rear-view mirror, just visible in the dimness of the back seat, was Summer’s face, staring out into the night. Her mouth was parted, her eyes were wide. She knew what was happening. The bad thing was in the process of playing out. Her pure soul felt it, and was rooted, terrified, to the spot.

  20

  Bruce had rung ahead and told his parents we were coming. They were standing in the dark on the lawn as we pulled into the drive. The white weatherboards of the house glowed ethereal in the dimness of the porch light. The Australian flag, hoisted on a pole attached to their carport roof, was flapping in the night wind.

  Bruce had put off for a long time my first meeting with Rex and Joan Harrison. As a preamble he’d simply said, ‘Get ready to tighten your bootstraps.’ Every time I visited the house I recalled a story Bruce had told me about his father, and now proved to be no exception, or maybe it was now, more than any other time, when the importance of the tale hit home. After Steven was born Bruce had confessed to me that his father had once, in a rage about a pushbike supposedly stolen from their driveway, pointed a pistol at Bruce’s eldest brother’s head. Rex had done it unashamedly, in the openness of their backyard, beneath the clothesline, and interrogated his son, to see if the bike had been stolen or if the young teen was lying. It turned out Bruce’s brother had been lying – he’d sold the bike for money to buy concert tickets. The confession could never justify the means by which it was obtained though. The incident had caused in Bruce a profound dislike of guns. He said his mother, looking out the kitchen window and seeing Rex hold the gun to Todd’s head, had screamed so loud that the neighbours three doors down had heard. His mother’s scream was what Bruce remembered most – the shock and horror in it. After that his father had sought help for his behaviour, he reformed, never handled weapons at home again, but … damage done, as Bruce had put it.

  I didn’t get out of the car. Joan came up to the open window. There was a degree of smugness and contentment in her expression.

  ‘Thank you for this, Joan,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ It was the most chipper I’d ever heard her.

  ‘I know it’s late, and —’

  ‘It happens to the best of us,’ she said, ‘the best of us’ a slur about our wealth and our out-of-town address, two things that amounted to snobbery in her eyes. The comment also led me to believe that Bruce had let them think our troubles were marital ones.

  ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ I called to Rex.

  The children were out of the car. Rex had walked up to Steven, placed a hand on the top of his head and was holding Steven still while appraising him. I could guess what Rex would say next, what he always said. ‘You’re a good-looking lad, aren’t ya?’

  The girls would be mostly ignored.

  ‘Rex!’ Joan barked. ‘The kids are upset! Leave ’em.’

  ‘They’re all right,’ I heard Rex say. ‘Blueing parents are a part of growing up. Come on,’ he said, his arm around Steven’s shoulders, ‘it’s bloody cold out here.’

  ‘Thanks again, Joan,’ I said.

  I backed up the driveway. The children looked over their shoulders and watched me leave.

  They say there’s a time in every child’s life when the rose-coloured glasses come off, and they see their parents as they really are: flawed human beings. Our children saw the fault lines in us that night. The headlights swung away from them and it occurred to me that our efforts to shield them from the truth were backfiring.

  I drove to the MAD office. The main street of Delaney was deserted. Lights illuminated the bare poplar trees. The trunks and limbs were bathed in an orangey glow. The last few stray leaves fluttered along the darkened shopfronts. Our office was brightly lit. Our four-wheel drive was parked diagonally outside, not in line with the parking bays. I could see Bruce inside, fossicking through the filing cabinet, probably looking for the spare keys to our rental properties.

  I pulled in to park.

  It had been a while since Bruce and I had been together in the office. I’d forgotten how much space he took up. The close walls and low ceiling made him seem taller, bigger, noisier. Two strides and he was across the room, pulling open the top drawer of the desk, taking out my hardcopy files of tenant details. My chair was pushed aside. His elbow creased my notepaper. ‘Are the kids all right?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘They’re safe there,’ he said.

  ‘Bruce, I have Bridget’s phone number – you know, the girl who made the original appointment.’ I checked my watch. ‘I’m going to ring her. We’ll know then if Finn is who he says he is. Just give me one minute.’

  I searched my desk diary for the number and dialled. Bruce had found the spare keys to Tyler Street.

  ‘It’s ringing,’ I told him.

  Bruce paused by the door.

  A woman answered. ‘Hello?’

  ‘This is Trudy Harrison from MAD property development, sorry for ringing so late. Is this Bridget Browder?’

  ‘No …’ the woman said, as though hedging her bets. ‘You must have the wrong number.’

  It was her, though. I recognised her voice. ‘Bridget? I’m the person you spoke to about the rental property in Tyler Street. In the Delaney office.’

  ‘No … sorry.’

  ‘This is …’ I searched the diary page for the number, ‘0432 867 597?’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Wait, Bridget —’

  Bruce walked out the door. The line went dead in my ear.

  Was I doing it again, being too slow to react? Reuben had walked towards me with a can of chemical spray and I’d not been quick enough to hide my face. Was I refusing again to see what was right in front of me? I ran to catch my husband. Above all else, I knew it was important we weren’t separated from one another, because that was when the worst things happened.

  We went to 17 Tyler Street. Bruce drove. I heard and felt the car’s noises and jolts as though from far away. My ears picked up strange new inflections and unusual tones in everything. My eyes were wide and dry. I was seeing the world through a different lens. The night air spoke to me. It pressed its chill through the windscreen and imprinted a cold tale against my face.

  The townhouse was in darkness when we arrived. The car clock read 11:23. The bright numbers burned with intensity, as if they contained a message. I heard a car misfire in the distance; this held extra meaning too. It sounded like a gun going off.

  Bruce had brought the spare remote control for the garage roller door. He pointed the device and swung our car into the driveway. The headlights shone on the garage floor as the roller door slowly opened. Both parking bays were empty. Bruce might have backed up and driven away, left to check the Four Seasons Inn, but the headlights revealed the bare interior of the garage, devoid of boxes or belongings.

  ‘He’s already left,’ he said, and drove in and parked on the left side of the garage. The roller door closed behind us. Bruce got out of the car. ‘I’ll check inside. Stay here.’

  There was direct access to the townhouse through a plain white door in the rear wall of the garage. When Bruce said he’d check inside, I thought he meant he’d unlock the door and stick his head in, but
he disappeared into Finn’s home.

  I got out and followed quickly to catch him.

  Bruce knew his way around the townhouse. We’d designed and built the place, after all. We knew the layout. He’d turned on the inside light and walked down the narrow passageway.

  For some reason I was expecting to find a spartan bachelor pad, but Finn had made the place cosy. There were handmade rugs on the walls and floor cushions scattered around, lots of small coffee tables and cookbooks in piles. His kitchen things wound pleasantly into the lounge room – mixing bowls became ornamental in the casual surrounds. It was an inviting home to walk into. The single light turned on down the passage provided enough illumination. The living area looked even cosier in the dim conditions. I shook my head; the surrounds cemented my feeling that we had taken a wrong turn. I felt sure if only we could wind back and go over the last few hours we would find the place where the answers were, a spot we’d glossed over too quickly.

  ‘He’s just at work,’ I said. ‘We can’t be in here. Let’s go.’

  There was a frying pan in the kitchen sink and some unopened mail on the bench. Bruce turned the envelopes towards him and read the name and address. He pushed the letters away without making comment. He started opening drawers and looking around. I didn’t speak, but Bruce held up his hand to silence me anyway.

  ‘Shh,’ he said, tilting his head towards the garage. ‘Stay quiet so we can hear if he comes.’

  Bruce opened Finn’s laptop and turned it on. While waiting for it to start up, he walked down to the bedroom. I stayed where I was, standing by the sink. The people in our second townhouse, a young couple, were playing techno music. I listened to the mindless doof doof of it. Bruce returned with a folded wad of one hundred dollar bills. He tossed the money on the bench beside the mail.

  ‘Why would that be in his bedside drawer?’

  ‘His parents are wealthy,’ I explained. ‘They give him ten thousand every month.’

  ‘In cash? I doubt it.’

  I shook my head. ‘This is a mistake …’

  The computer had booted up. Bruce began opening things on Finn’s computer. My husband’s hands weren’t shaking – his browsing seemed almost leisurely. I could see he was wired though – his jaw was set, his hands curled into fists when he wasn’t using them, both feet were planted on the floor.