After Ariel: It started as a game

by Diana Hockley

  Dingo rushed up the back stairs to the second floor. His hands trembled so badly, he struggled to get the key in the lock. The handkerchief wrapped around his finger snagged on the key. Impatiently, he ripped it off ignoring the stinging, then unlocked and pushed the door open. He switched on the light and blundered to the bed, where he tore the camera out of the bag and fumbled for the SD card. The looped wrist strap snagged on his finger bending it back until he swore at the pain. He dropped the camera on the bed, and sucked the slight puncture wounds on his fingers. Keep calm...two, four, six, eight, ten...

  When the pain had eased, he took a deep breath, picked the camera up again and gently pulled the card. It looked like no SD card he had ever seen. He stepped over to the bedside light and switched it on to inspect the strangely-shaped object. CF...Compact Flash! It wouldn’t work in his laptop! He’d have to get a card reader...which meant he would have to go out in the morning and buy one. Dick Smith, Myers, there’d be plenty of places he could go. He wanted to slam the thing against the wall. No, it had to work. Nothing else would do.

  No matter how hard he wished, the result would be the same. There was no way he could view what was on the card that night. Disbelief sent shivers of fear surging through his body. He knew she’d taken his and Ariel’s photos. She’d even waved to them as they cavorted across the grass, posing for her, laughing. He plopped onto the bed and sat motionless. Seven...no...six...no, eight...ten...deep breath...slow your breathing...

  Dingo leaped to his feet and bolted for the en suite where he lost the meagre contents of his stomach. Leaning on the edge of the toilet bowl, he grabbed the toilet paper, pulled a large piece off the roll, spat into the bowl and wiped his mouth. Gripped by inertia, some time passed before he hauled himself upright and staggered to the washbasin. His lower back hurt, and he finally remembered falling back onto the edge of the stair while wrestling with the photographer. He rubbed the sore patch and then stared at himself in the mirror. Glazed eyes, gaunt cheeks, white face, and hair lying flat against his head. Turning the cold tap on and cupping his hand underneath the stream, he bent to rinse his mouth out. Grimacing, he squeezed a blob of toothpaste onto his finger, rinsed and spat.

  A small bottle standing on the shelf above the basin caught his eye. How long since he’d taken the last dose? Dingo couldn’t remember. He shook some tablets into his sweaty palm, threw them into his mouth and chased down them with a swig of water. Minutes later, they came back up. He leaned over the toilet, exhausted and sweating. Have to get control...a rinse, more teeth cleaning. Deep breaths...deep breaths...two, four, six, eight, ten...

  Scrabbling through the zippered side pocket of his backpack, he found a bandaid and a foil pack of codeine. He carefully plastered his finger, after which he sat on the side of the bed and picked the camera up again. Maybe, just maybe...could she have pretended to take photos just to make them happy? Resisting the impulse to smash it on the floor, he shoved it back into the bag. Terror had him in its grip. What if the cops found him and he had the bag in his room? He opened the door at the top of the built-in wardrobe, pushed the bag to the back and closed it. He would dump it in the morning.

  Disappointment and fear pitched him into frenzy. Hardly stopping for a sip of water, he kept on the move until the first light of dawn seeped through the window, counting as he paced back and forth, long steps, short steps – as long as they were even numbers he was safe! Exhausted, he fell on the bed, just remembering to set the alarm on his watch before he dropped into sleep.

  *

  The day his father died, Dingo lost all hope. A stocky, powerfully-built quiet man, his father, Marcus, was helpless to stem the onslaught of obsessive love with which Frances smothered their son, though he did manage, to a certain extent, to protect the child. Marcus and Dingo were a team. When Frances, worn out with ranting at Dingo to practice his music, fell asleep in front of the afternoon soapies, they would take the opportunity to go fishing in the creek, mend machinery or just go for a walk in the bush with the dogs. When he was three, he would wait out by the house fence, listening for the sounds of sheep being driven to the woolshed. As soon as their plaintive tired cries could be heard he would slither down from the fence post and run to meet his father who would pull him up the side of his stockhorse onto the pommel of the saddle. There he would sit, secure in his father’s arms as they followed the mob to the yards.

  It was a moot point as to whether Dingo was lucky or not that Frances, a former concert pianist and now music teacher, had realised his ability by the time he was three. An old trumpet was discovered in a trunk in the shearer’s quarters and the young boy, intrigued, tried it out. To his own and everyone else’s surprise, he’d made a pretty good go of it for his age. From tooting a few notes, he graduated within a few days to picking out simple tunes. Flushed with over-excitement, his mother sprang into action, buying “beginners music.” An ancient piano, stored in the back of a shed, was hauled out and the piano tuner summonsed to the property. Before a bewildered Dingo and angry Marcus could marshal any defence, the child’s future was set in concrete.

  ‘You’ll practice until you drop!’ His mother’s implacable statement was delivered every day through thin, grim lips. Her eyes narrowed to slits as arguments over Dingo’s future raged nightly. A driven woman, denied the successful concert career she had given up to marry a farmer, Frances was determined to have it all through her son. ‘He’s a genius!’ his mother screamed, ‘A prodigy!’

  ‘He’s just a kid who likes to play music. He’s too young for you to start making a career for him. He’s only three, for Christ’s sake!’ Marcus’ voice took on an unaccustomed edge, but to no avail. The raging went on and on. Many nights, Dingo snuck out of the window in his room, across the verandah and out to the nearest dog kennel where he crawled in beside the occupant who was only too happy to comfort the sobbing child.

  Then came that dark morning and the child’s world changed forever.

  The weather forecasters had it right. The storm hit, bringing down a gum tree onto the garage. The crack of the trunk and shriek of the metal roof as it folded into itself was a sound which haunted the five year-old Dingo’s dreams continuing until became an adult. Pieces of wood and tins thrown off the shelves ricocheted off fence posts. His father almost threw him out of the shed, where he fell to the ground, screaming and laid there, his arms wrapped around his head until the terrible sounds faded and the dust stopped swirling around him. He stood up and took a couple of steps toward the ruined garage before running, eyes wide with horror, to the house where he found his mother slamming windows shut.

  ‘Daddy’s under the tree!’ he screamed, pulling at his mother’s skirt.

  She swung around and whacked him across the head sending him crashing to the floor. ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to shut the windows?’

  ‘Daddy’s in the garage!’ he yelled again, confused. Wasn’t she supposed to run out and look?

  His mother swooped down on him, arms flailing and he smelled what he knew was something bad, but at the time didn’t realise was alcohol. ‘Shut up you little bastard! Can’t you see I’m busy?’ She rushed from the room. Dingo ran outside into the storm but was driven back inside the laundry, where he curled under the concrete tubs and sobbed, while the wind whipped sheets of iron from the roof and the garden disappeared forever. What was the point of trying anything more? Mum wouldn’t take any notice of him.

  From then on, life went downhill for Dingo. It was hours before the storm abated and Frances sobered up enough to realise that her husband was missing and went to look for him. The drama after his father’s decapitated body was discovered surpassed anything previously known in the household. His mother alternately punished him for ‘not telling her what had happened’ and smothered him as her ‘fatherless child.’

  They moved into town after the tragedy. The horses and other livestock were sold and the sheepdogs were sent to new homes – Marcus’ dogs were highly prized for their skill.
The cat came with them to the isolated mansion which his mother had purchased with money inherited from her husband, his insurance payout and the sale of the farm. Dingo was grateful for the cat. It became his only companion and his mother actually liked it.

  Frances kept up the relentless pressure to keep his music up to standard. She would storm up and down his music room, thumping a stick on the floor to emphasise timing, drowning out the beat of the metronome. She drove her son so hard that he frequently fell asleep over his lessons, home schooling being the method which his agoraphobic mother chose for his education. If Dingo thought life was hard then, it was as nothing compared to what happened after he killed the baby.

  CHAPTER 16

  Revelations

  Pam

  Sunday 2.15AM

  The short drive to Fiona and Alex’ house was over before I could work out how to tell them that their daughter was dead, let alone how it happened. Detective Hamilton was no help, staring grimly ahead with not a word. Just as I was on the verge of panic, we drew up outside the house and he turned to me and touched my hand. ‘Are you okay? I can tell them if you like. You’ve had enough to cope with already.’

  The skin on the back of my hand felt as though it had been branded. I could barely speak. ‘Thank you, I’d be grateful if you would. I don’t know how to face them. Only yesterday we were here, Goldie and I, and we were having...such a lovely time catching up.’ Tears poured down my cheeks. Stop crying, Pam, for God’s sake. A white handkerchief appeared in front of me.

  ‘Do you have a secret supply of these?’ I wiped my eyes and went to pass it back, but he held his hand up with a wry smile.

  ‘Yes, my aunts are prolific givers of boxes of them and I actually had one on the back seat. It came yesterday.’

  ‘Was it your birthday? My mother said her aunts always gave her soap and face washers for her birthdays,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Er...yes, it was my birthday and yes, most of mine do too.’ His lips actually curled up at the corners and just for a moment, the Easter Island statue came to life. Before I could say anything further, he’d opened the car door and got out. In seconds he’d handed me onto the pavement, and I still had no idea of how we were going to handle this.

  It took awhile before our knocking brought the sound of footsteps. The front door opened and Alex stood there, hair standing on end, tying the cord of his old green tartan dressing gown. I glanced down; his bare toes looked defenceless.

  Before he could speak, Detective Hamilton introduced himself and asked if we could come in. My uncle’s eyes widened; he nodded and stepped back.

  ‘Alex, who’s there? Is it Goldie?’ My aunt’s voice floated down the stairs.

  ‘No, it’s Pam and...someone...’

  Alex didn’t wait until she came down the stairs, instead ushering us into the lounge-room, sending worried glances in our direction. Hamilton glanced at me. I opened my mouth but nothing came out, so he stepped into the breach. ‘I think we should sit down, Mr Humphries.’

  Thoroughly frightened, Alex plopped into the nearest chair. Fiona rushed through the door to stand beside him, a hand over her mouth.

  Hamilton and I sat opposite on the lounge and he took the initiative. ‘We have some bad news and I’m sorry, there’s no easy way to tell you.’ He took at deep breath. ‘Your daughter, Marigold Humphries, has been found dead in her home.’

  Alex and Fiona stared at him. Alex sat with his arms hanging down at his sides, helpless in the face of the worst news any parent could hear.

  I jumped up and went to Fiona, but just then Millicent came through the door bent on finding her mistress. Before anyone could move, Fiona snatched her up and wrapped her arms around her. For a moment, the cat enjoyed being held, but then Fiona’s arms tightened. The cat struggled; Fiona held her even tighter. The animal cried and Alex was galvanised into action. He quickly stood and tried to loosen Fiona’s hold, but she squeezed harder. Millicent struggled and raked at the sleeve of my aunt’s dressing gown, her cries mingling with the Fiona’s keening.

  Immobilised by the sight of two adults and a cat struggling, I didn’t immediately react, but the detective was made of sterner stuff. He leaped up, clamped his hands around Fiona’s wrists and gently prised her arms open. Millicent escaped and fled behind the sofa. Alex, relieved of grappling with his wife, cast a grateful glance at the sergeant and sat her down. Her wails faded to whimpers as I headed for the kitchen to make hot drinks. As I walked down the hallway I heard the hinge of the liquor cabinet door creak above her sobs.

  By the time I got back, two glasses of brandy stood on the table, one less full than the other. My aunt and uncle, arms around each other, gazed at the detective as though he possessed magical powers which would bring their daughter back to life. Hamilton’s stoicism had been replaced by a kindly demeanour as he told them gently but firmly, what had happened and why the police thought Goldie’s death was not an accident.

  I laid the tray down on the coffee table and poured without asking what anyone wanted. I figured they didn’t care what they got and according to the TV shows, cops would drink anything hot. I passed out the cups and then sat beside the detective, trying to concentrate on what he was saying.

  ‘...so we won’t know for sure how she died until forensics have done their work. I’m so sorry but I do have to ask you some questions. Do you feel up to it now?’ He made eye contact with Fiona. She nodded slowly. The material of her dressing gown trembled on her lap.

  Alex, ashen-faced, took her hands in his. ‘We’ll be all right, Mr Hamilton, ask whatever you need to know.’

  Just then, Millicent re-appeared and leaped onto the sofa beside Fiona who, on autopilot, removed her hands from Alex’s and took the cat into her lap. To our relief, stroking the dense fur seemed to calm Fiona. Millicent purred approval.

  Hamilton took out his notebook and pen. ‘When did you last see your daughter?’

  ‘She stopped by this afternoon. Er, yesterday afternoon.’ Alex face crumpled as he realised that was the last time he would speak to his child.

  ‘Mrs Humphries?’ Fiona didn’t reply. Alex spoke gently into her ear and she raised her head.

  ‘This afternoon. She rode her bicycle over. I was watering the garden when she...’ She couldn’t continue.

  The detective made another note in his book. ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘She just said she’d see me tomorrow...and that was it. She didn’t kiss me goodbye.’ Fiona dropped her head onto Alex’s shoulder. The weary movement broke my heart.

  Hamilton looked at them thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘Have you any idea who might wish Ms Humphries harm? Any people she might have upset lately?’

  ‘Call her Goldie...Mr...er...it’s better. Easier. No, I don’t know of anyone who would want to harm our daughter. ‘Alex pursed his lips. ‘I would be surprised if she hadn’t made some bad friends over the years though. I doubt if any journalist would have everyone love them, but I can’t think of anyone here who would actually k...do something like that.’

  ‘What about that man who kept sending her flowers after Parry died?

  ‘You mean Adam McIntyre?’ Alex’s lips folded in a thin line.

  ‘Who’s he and where does he live?’ The pen was flying across the page.

  ‘He’s a fellow journalist, but I don’t know where he lives. Goldie said they had a fight over the phone the other day – last week sometime – and he was really nasty. She was liv–id.’ Alex’s voice broke. He turned his head to look at his wife, whose face was buried in the cat’s fur. Silver strands in his dark hair, which I hadn’t noticed before, glittered in the light, the furrows of his cheeks forming chasms in his colourless face.

  ‘Do you know what they fought about?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rosy colour flooded Alex’ face. ‘They had an affair a few months ago but Goldie broke it off. He’s been – I guess you could say – stalking her – ever since.’

  ‘Did she report it?

  ‘No
, we wanted her to, but she said he was – ‘Alex’ lips curled down’– a right little ferret with no –’ he glanced at Fiona, who didn’t appear to be listening, ‘– no dick to speak of.’

  I almost laughed. That was Goldie to the letter, but feeling guilty, smothered the second of levity. Nothing had sunk in. Goldie was going to walk in the door at any moment, laughing and ready to party. The coat she’d left behind yesterday was draped over the chair in her ‘writing nook’ off the lounge room, her spare hairbrush still upstairs in the guest bathroom, along with the toiletries she kept for when she stayed overnight with her parents and the change of clothes in her old childhood bedroom.

  The only sound was the scratch of Hamilton’s pen as he made notes, his fist twisted into the peculiar angling of the left- handed. I realised, with amazement, that he was actually using a fountain pen. My feeling of floating detachment was surreal. Had I dreamt the previous couple of hours? Weariness seeped through my limbs. The ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the wall alerted me the fact that it was almost three o’clock in the morning. I had been up and on the go for almost twenty-four hours. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t prevent myself from yawning. I caught Alex’ eye, but didn’t recognise the angry man who glared at me. ‘Are we keeping you up, Pam?’

  Recoiling from the sarcasm in his voice, I clapped the white handkerchief to my face to keep from retaliating. Anger wouldn’t solve anything.

  Hamilton looked up from his notes. ‘Ms Miller found Goldie when she came back to the house from the concert. She called the ambulance and the police and she’s had to wait while forensics did their job and answer questions as well. I don’t think she’s had any rest since she got up yesterday morning, isn’t that so?’ He glanced at me for a confirming nod.

  My aunt looked over at me, shocked. ‘We hadn’t realised...’ My uncle said nothing.

  ‘It’s fine. Shall I make some more tea?’ I was determined to keep the peace.

  Alex declined for himself and his wife. I turned to the detective with an enquiring lift of my eyebrow. ‘Not for me, thanks. I’m almost finished here.’ Hamilton turned back to my aunt and uncle. ‘You say this Adam McIntyre might have had a grudge. Anyone else you know of?’