by Jane Jago
Lauren laughed. ‘It’s all right. I know exactly what you mean.’
‘What I really mean is that he was a colossus of integrity, and that’s what I’ll write. I admired his certainty.’
‘Good. He would have liked that.’ She reached into her handbag and drew out a folded wad of paper. ‘He wanted me to get this to you several weeks back but events took over. He said you would know what to do with it.’
Reiser took the paper from her and slid it into his pocket.
‘Thanks again for coming.’ She shook his hand.
He watched her make her way around the room, acknowledging her father’s peers and accepting their condolences. It was then that he noticed Mathew Allen, hovering near the back of the room, sipping tea from a cup held in a shaky hand. The man was barely recognizable. A faint shadow of himself, grey, washed-out, eyes sunken in hollow cheeks. He shook his head and felt a momentary flash of irritation that today, of all days, Allen should be there as a living reminder. Then again why should he not pay his respects? It wasn’t his fault. He considered crossing the room to speak to him but couldn’t face it. Instead, taking one more excuse for a sandwich from a nearby tray, he slipped quietly away.
A yellow ticket fluttered on his bonnet as he approached his shining hire-car. ‘Charming.’ He lifted it from behind the rubber wiper. Two car spaces away there was a marked police car; he walked over to it and wedged the ticket into the driver’s side mirror. ‘Rude not to,’ he declared, to the empty, tree-lined street.
Once inside his car he opened the folded pages, revealing a short list of names and telephone numbers. Two were current police officers and one was an ex-detective whose name he knew; the others were unfamiliar. Beneath the names was written: ‘Re: Whereabouts of Simpson and Harris.’ He spread the page across his thigh and looked out of the windscreen to the world beyond, comfortably occupied with its own business. ‘Even to the grave,’ he said.
He looked back at the sheet of paper, thumbed his chin and carefully reconsidered the information printed there.
Reiser deposited another file carton on the low Javanese-teak coffee-table at the centre of the brilliant red Afghan rug that covered half of the living-room floor.
‘Can’t you do that in your office for once?’ asked Ruth, then stuck a slice of buttered sourdough toast into her mouth and grabbed her car keys from the kitchen counter.
He sighed irritably. ‘Ruth.’
‘Well, what’s the point of having an office, then?’
‘You won’t even be here,’ he said, scattering a row of grey file-folders across the carpet in front of him. His blue and white pyjama pants barely covered the crack of his buttocks as he leant forward to arrange them in chronological order. He lifted a heavy green soapstone toad from a nearby occasional table and plonked it down on a pile of loose papers. ‘I’m sure there’s room in here for one more artefact.’
‘Okay, forget I spoke. Bye.’
‘Bye.’ He waved a hand behind his head without looking at her.
He heard her car start in the drive as he opened the first file, marked ‘1993, Allen. Abduction/Murder’. He browsed quickly through his notes, press clippings and newspaper reportage of the case. He sipped tepid coffee and opened a second folder, ‘Interviews’. This contained sheaves of handwritten notes about the victim and his family, police interview transcripts and interviews with the killers’ families. Every word of the material was instantly familiar to him; it stimulated and exhausted him to exhume it. He would need to review it all to write the book he imagined, to tell the story from the inside, from every angle. To do that he needed to talk to them, he needed interviews, and what he was looking for among all these words was anything that would give him a lead on finding Harris and Simpson.
He flipped the wings on a second carton and extracted several plastic folio boxes. In the first, ‘Parole Hearing’, there was a yellowed newspaper clipping: a photograph of an embattled Deborah Simpson attempting to hide her face as she was surrounded by a mob of media, behind her a row of brown-brick council houses. ‘KILLER’S MUM EXPOSED’. The story reported an attack on a corner store where she had briefly worked before being exposed again at the time of the parole hearing. He turned the clipping over to reveal a street address: the last-known residence of Debbie Simpson. He noted it down and continued through the files.
A svelte grey cat appeared beside him and nuzzled his arm.
‘Hello, Sammy.’ He rubbed its head with the back of his hand. It rolled over onto the scattered paperwork. Reiser swatted the floor next to it and the cat leapt onto the coffee-table, spoiling a near perfect landing by losing its footing on a sheet of paper and toppling his mug. A pool of coffee began to soak into the carton below. He pulled the Indian-cotton runner off the coffee-table and dabbed at the liquid in an attempt to save his papers. He held up the stained runner. ‘She’s gonna love that . . .’ He folded it into a small square, then lifted a stack of papers from the box to bury the evidence at the bottom.
As he did so a small blue diary caught his eye. He recognized it as one of several he had used when writing a long feature about the possible early release of the killers. He turned to a page of notes, a list of figures calculating the cost of the perpetrators’ incarceration. Wedged into the spine of the book between two pages was a slip of lined rice paper. Written on it in neat capitals was the name Christine Harris and a phone number. He copied the number into his current work diary and looked around him at the expanding circle of papers. He got to his feet but could not immediately straighten his knees, his left foot had gone to sleep. He stood on one leg and rubbed his bare belly before reaching for the phone. He remembered a desperate Christine Harris calling him before the parole hearing, pleading her son’s remorse, hoping to influence his coverage of the case. That was nearly ten years ago. He rang the number and held his hand over the mouthpiece.
‘Hello?’ There followed a lengthy silence. ‘Who is this?’
It was her, all right. The engaged tone sounded rudely in his ear as the call was terminated.
He rummaged about in the bottom of the carton until he found an address book, page after page scrawled with the names of contacts he no longer recognized. Incapable of writing between the lines or conforming to the imposed format, he found it difficult to decipher his shorthand as he scanned the pages. Scribbled randomly across the space for two entries were the words ‘Harris née Buttrose – 48 Magellan Road, Northcote’. It was the address she had provided along with the phone number several years earlier. He keyed the information into the contact list on his mobile. If the gods were with him, she would still be living at the same address.
Liam, 2008
Catherine sat waiting at a table in the rear of the Ocean Pearl restaurant, pretending to read the menu. She glanced up, registered Liam’s arrival, then turned away again. He made his way awkwardly through the rows of tables, now filling with other couples, and pulled out his chair. His shirt was untucked and he looked as if he hadn’t slept for several days. She watched him sit, already affronted by his presence. He attempted to smile. Catherine picked up her mineral water and sipped.
They sat in silence. Catherine wanted him to say something that would make it possible for her to consider forgiving him, anything that would rewrite the situation so she could drop her pride. Instead he seemed to be waiting for her to make some pronouncement.
‘Have you ordered?’ he asked.
‘No, Liam, I haven’t ordered.’
It was as if they were already strangers; she wondered what she had ever seen in him.
*
Liam watched her face as she wrapped a folded paper napkin round and round the end of her thumb. Even her features had altered, swollen with the hormones of pregnancy.
A waiter appeared.
‘What will you have?’ asked Liam.
‘Just another mineral water, thanks. I’m not eating.’ She dropped the napkin onto her bread plate.
‘I’ll have the soup. Are
you sure you don’t want something?’
She turned her head slowly from side to side. ‘No, thanks.’
Liam fiddled with his cutlery as the gulf between them widened. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine. The baby’s fine. How would you expect me to be?’
‘Upset.’
‘Why are we here?’
‘I’m hoping we can find a way to be together for the baby . . .’
‘Yes. Wouldn’t that be nice? For the baby.’
Liam pushed on, ignoring the hostility in her voice. ‘I should have been more honest with you from the beginning. I should have talked to you.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘You know what hurt me most, Liam? It wasn’t just that you lied to me and deceived me but that I had no idea you were even capable of it.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I actually thought you loved me.’
‘I’m sorry . . . I do.’
‘I realize you’re not who I thought you were.’
‘Catherine, I did a terrible thing.’
‘Yes, you did. You betrayed me. I won’t put up with any more secrets or lies if you want to be part of this baby’s life, in any way . . .’
‘Will you come home?’
‘No.’
‘You won’t change your mind?’
She shook her head again. ‘I won’t stop you seeing the baby. I want my child to have a father, but I don’t think I can ever trust you again.’
Liam understood. It was too late. There was nothing more to say.
Apart from his sadness at the distance between them, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
After Liam had paid the bill Catherine waited until she saw him cross the street and get into his car. Only then did she allow herself to wipe her eyes with the crumpled napkin.
Alex Reiser, 2008
Number eight Magellan Road was a smart Californian-style bungalow with a leafy cottage garden. Through the windscreen Alex Reiser had a clear view to the front door. The house was in a lower-middle-class suburban neighbourhood, quiet and anonymous. The buzz of a motorbike announced the arrival of the postman as he crossed the journalist’s field of vision, travelling a well-worn groove in the nature strip. Holding his bike upright with one hip, he tugged a cluster of envelopes from a wad and fed them into the mailbox, then went on his way.
Reiser allowed a few minutes to pass, then collected the mail and made a beeline for the house. His loud, confident knock produced an instant response from inside.
‘Coming,’
The door was opened by a woman in her mid-fifties. The confusion on her face told Reiser she had been expecting someone else. She stared at him, then at the mail in his hand. She looked again at his face trying to place it.
‘Christine. Christine Harris?’ He extended his hand. ‘Alex Reiser. Do you remember me?’
Her face slackened as she stepped back inside and held out her hand for the mail. ‘Please don’t print this address,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’
‘I have no intention of creating trouble for you. Let me come inside where we can talk in private.’
‘What about?’
‘I’m writing a book and I want to tell all sides of the story. I’d like to talk to Graham.’
She looked at him for several seconds as though he were insane. ‘I’m begging you not to give anyone this address. We moved at least six times after the . . . This place, my garden, it’s the only peace I have.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, Christine. I just want to talk, if not to Graham then to you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I don’t have contact with Graham. I wish I did.’
‘No contact at all? That must be very painful.’
‘It would be too risky. I can’t think what more there is to say that hasn’t been said.’
‘I want to write about the impact on all the families. I know this didn’t just destroy the Allens. I saw the agony on your face at the trial, as you stood by Graham.’
The woman looked at him, then up at the street. Seeming to choose between two equally undesirable options, she opened the door wider and ushered him inside. ‘No one here knows about my past. I’d like it to stay that way.’
‘I understand. I mean no harm.’
‘And I haven’t heard from him,’ she said, throwing her hands up for emphasis.
‘I believe you.’
Looking around the neat room he noted, among the ceramic statuettes and dried flower arrangements, a set of brass-framed photographs of cute grandchildren. There was no sign of Graham or the nightmare of the past. ‘Are you and Denis still together?’
Christine Harris flushed. ‘No. He hasn’t coped well. He has Alzheimer’s . . . Please don’t disturb him, he needs to be left alone.’ She vigorously twisted the gold ring on her middle finger.
Reiser still stood in the doorway, his satchel draped over his shoulder.
‘You may as well sit down,’ said Christine, lowering herself stiffly into an armchair. ‘Look, none of us will ever get over what happened. There’s just no point in dragging it all up again.’
Reiser nodded. ‘It’s never really gone away, though, has it? Mathew Allen still lives and breathes it, the public still wonders where the boys are. There’s a story in the paper every other week speculating on who they are . . .’
Christine’s composure began to crumble. Her mouth turned down, and her eyes were moist with tears. ‘I wrote to the mother countless times, and every letter came back unopened, as if they wanted me to know they hadn’t read them.’ She tilted her chin. ‘The police told me not to write to her again. I only ever did it through her solicitors. I never wanted to bother the woman, but she had to know how sorry Graham was and is . . . He’s not the same person. It’s selfish, I know . . . It’s so awful, everything is awful . . . The world forgets, but I still live with it every day.’ She patted her cheeks dry with both hands. ‘I’ve lost the right to be happy on any level.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Do you know what that’s like?’
Reiser shook his head.
She laughed. ‘I was so sure he hadn’t done it. So sure that it was down to Danny Simpson . . . but they were both as bad as each other.’ She looked at him for silent confirmation; this last realization had been a long time coming. ‘I did something wrong, I know. Somehow something I did . . . It was my fault.’
‘Well, you didn’t kill anyone,’ he offered.
She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t a good mother, I was angry all the time. I’ve had a lot of counselling over the years, but how many times can you talk about the same thing? How does a child do something like that? Finally I faced up to it. I was awful to Graham, I didn’t cope. Denis was useless. It’s true what they wrote – what you wrote . . . There were so many signs that we just ignored or closed our eyes to. He’d lashed out violently before . . . I was just so angry with him. I had too much to deal with. Graham’s behavioural problems were the last straw. At times I hated him. A child knows that.’ She wiped her face again and looked down at the carpet. ‘On more than one occasion I lost control and hit him . . . hard.’ She straightened up and looked the journalist in the eye. ‘I was so good with the others, especially little Claire, but Graham just brought out the worst in me. And all the rage he visited on that baby boy? I know it came from me. The only thing I hang onto is that Graham has a new chance at life . . .’
A door closed somewhere in the rear of the house. Christine Harris looked up. A tall man in his early thirties appeared in the doorway. He looked first at the stranger, then at his mother. What hairs were left on the back of Alex Reiser’s neck stood to involuntary attention. The man’s resemblance to the recent computer-generated photograph of his younger brother was unnerving. Here before him stood a living facsimile of the adult Graham Harris. ‘Joel,’ said his mother, ‘this is Alex Reiser.’
‘I know who he is. Are you right in the head?’
‘It’s OK,’ began Reiser. ‘I have no intention of revealing anything about –’
‘You peopl
e never have any intention but to feed on the misery of others.’
A dark-haired girl ran into the room carrying a pink backpack.
‘Hello, my lovely,’ said Christine, kissing her cheek. ‘Nanny’s just talking to a man.’
‘Sarah, make yourself a sandwich in the kitchen.’
The girl looked disappointed but followed her father’s instruction.
‘I was just telling Mr Reiser that we don’t have any contact with your brother and we don’t know any more than he does, that everyone concerned just wants to be left alone and that even Graham deserves to be left in peace.’
This was too much for Joel. ‘Peace,’ he said bitterly.
‘That he’s paid the price . . . We all have.’
‘If you’re going to talk to this parasite, Mum, why don’t you tell him the truth?’
She stared at her son.
‘Did she tell you she’s been writing to him?’
‘Joel.’ The woman’s face became a stony mask. ‘That’s not true, you know it’s not.’ She stood up and held the gold confirmation medal that hung at her throat. ‘I swear to you I don’t know anything about my son since his release. I have nothing more to tell you.’
‘What were you thinking?’ demanded Joel.
Reiser saw the hunted expression on her face as she tried desperately to transmit a silent plea for mercy to her elder son.
‘I didn’t come here to ruin your lives. Anything I write will be fiction . . .’
Joel laughed.
‘I won’t share my sources or any information about you.’
‘Very reassuring.’
‘I’m hoping to meet with Graham and talk with him, to tell his side of the story.’
Joel raised his hand. ‘I don’t give a shit about Graham. My brother forfeited his life the day he decided to kill a kid. I don’t care how old he was. The kid was three, my sister was eight, I was fourteen. The kid’s still dead, as far as I know, and his parents are still in hell.’
‘He was a very troubled boy. I blame myself,’ Christine repeated.
Joel’s face reddened and he looked with disgust at the weeping woman. ‘When will you stop making excuses for him? For God’s sake! Tell the truth for once in your fucking life. You’ve been writing to him for months.’
