[Amelia gazes steadily]
Mr Botherit: Let’s get started right away. This is a formal hearing during which you and Riley will have the opportunity to persuade us that the grounds for termination of your scholarship are without foundation. Do you understand that?
[Amelia blinks, which we take to be a nod]
Mr Botherit: In effect, if the scholarship is terminated you will miss out on the bonus.
[Another blink]
Mr Botherit: Right. Can you tell us why you failed to attend your English exam?
Amelia: Okay. Earlier this year I met a girl who lives in a mental institution in Castle Hill. She has serious depression. We got to be friends and I met up with her a lot. I missed the exam because I went to see her; I thought she was going to kill herself.
[Long pause]
Mr Botherit: Why — why did you think that?
Amelia: Not long before this she told me her heart was broken. And then she started falling apart — not eating, not sleeping, fading away.
Mr Botherit: . . . Okay, but you came to the exam that morning — people saw you arrive. And then you suddenly left?
Amelia: Yes.
Mr Botherit: You suddenly became convinced this . . . friend . . . was going to kill herself?
Amelia: Right.
Mr Botherit: Amelia, you say that your friend was in an institution. Presumably they would have had safeguards in place to stop patients from killing themselves.
Amelia: They didn’t have safeguards in place to stop a patient killing another patient with an axe earlier this year.
[Some murmurs of shock around the table — another long pause — then]
Mr Botherit: All right. And it was more important to you to . . . save this girl’s life than to attend an HSC exam?
Amelia: Ah. Yeah.
Mr Botherit: Forgive me, Amelia. You see, this is all rather . . . out of left field, is the expression I think. We had no idea about your friend in the . . . mental institution.
[Silence]
Mr Botherit: Amelia, where is this mental institution?
Amelia: It’s near the heritage park.
Mr Botherit (voice softening): Okay. So that’s why you went there. A friend — a friend had a broken heart — and she wanted to kill herself. So you went to . . . stop her.
Amelia: Right.
Mr Botherit: And what happened when you got there?
Amelia: She wasn’t there, where I usually meet her. In the vegetable garden. I spent a couple of hours searching around the park and the neighbourhood. I was heading back to see if I could speak to the people at the institution itself — she’s always told me to stay away from there, but I was too scared by now. I wanted to make sure. And that’s when the storm started — and when I saw her. There was a rope — a tree — I started running — and then I woke up in the hospital. And two weeks had gone by.
Mr Botherit: Did you tell the people at the hospital about this friend?
Amelia: Of course. I wanted them to find out for me if she was okay.
Mr Botherit: What did they say?
Amelia: They said there is no mental institution in Castle Hill.
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
Mr Botherit: Riley, have you ever seen the mental institution that Amelia refers to?
Riley: No.
Mr Botherit: Why do you think Amelia went to the heritage park instead of to her English exam?
Riley: Because of me. I betrayed her. I told her I’d given up on her.
Mr Botherit: Okay. And do you have anything to say to explain the criminal charges against you.
Riley: No.
[Long pause]
Mr Botherit: All right. We’ll move on to the next gr—
Mr Garcia: Can I interrupt? Riley, you turned yourself in to the police. Why did you do that?
Riley: I couldn’t have stayed with Amelia in the hospital if I was running.
Patricia Aganovic: Can I ask when you realised that your hands were fractured?
Riley: When they tried to take my fingerprints.
EVIDENCE OF AMELIA DAMASKI
Mr Botherit: Amelia, did your mother ever come to the hospital when you were there?
Amelia: How is that relevant? [A pause during which Amelia thinks and then laughs to herself and says:] Well, my stepfather was in the hospital while I was, and Mum would have come to see him, so, yeah, I guess my mother did come to the hospital while I was there.
Mr Botherit: To see your stepfather. Okay. Do you have anything to say about the criminal charges against Riley?
Amelia: They’re excessive. My stepfather was only in hospital overnight.
Mr Botherit: Excessive? But Riley’s hands were broken. You have to hit somebody pretty hard to break your own hands.
Amelia: I don’t think that’s how Riley broke his hands. I think he punched the wall.
Mr Botherit: So he swung at your stepdad and got the wall, it’s not really rel—
Amelia: Riley doesn’t miss.
Mr Botherit: You’re saying he just randomly, deliberately hit the wall.
Amelia: Yes.
Mr Botherit: Why would . . . Oh, perhaps we should leave this for now.
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
Riley: Why did I not tell you in the scholarship interview that I once beat a guy so badly I snapped his spine? Well, I didn’t plan to do it again.
EVIDENCE OF AMELIA DAMASKI
Amelia: Why would we tell anybody that?
Mr Botherit: You didn’t think we deserved to hear the full tr—
Amelia (calmly): If you want the full truth, you should know this about Riley. From the age of two, he drummed on everything — garbage bin lids, walls, the TV. It gave his dad a headache. He used to punch Riley in the head, so the kid would know what a headache felt like. Sometimes he’d press Riley’s hands against the hot element of the stove, hoping it would stop him from drumming.
They put him in five different foster homes — he ran away from all of them, ended up in the hostel where I live, and that’s how I met him.
Mr Botherit (quietly): It’s not surprising that Riley became a violent person.
Amelia (slowly, calmly): Riley is not a violent person. That time he attacked the guy in the petrol station? It was the manager. He had my arm twisted so hard behind my back I was about to pass out. Riley went wild — he was protecting me.
Mr Botherit: But how could you know he wouldn’t go wild again? When another occasion came up to . . . protect you?
Amelia: He promised he wouldn’t.
Mr Botherit: Amelia, a promise —
Amelia: Do you know what he promised? That if he ever felt that angry again he’d punch a wall with both fists. My stepdad got off easy. Look at the wall, and look at Riley’s hands, and then give me a lecture about promises.
Lucy Wexford: What’s that noise? That banging?
Mr Botherit: The Ashbury ghost.
Mr Garcia: It’s Amelia. She’s kicking the table leg. This is what she does when she is angry.
[The kicking stops, abruptly]
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
Riley: We used the music rooms after hours to practise. Amelia has an old guitar but that’s the only instrument we have.
Lucy Wexford: But you could have used the school’s resources any time! You just needed to ask.
[Riley gazes at her steadily]
EVIDENCE OF AMELIA DAMASKI
Mr Botherit: Amelia, did you or Riley steal a set of castanets?
[Amelia laughs — keeps laughing]
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
[Riley laughs — keeps laughing]
Lucy Wexford: Riley, the fractures to your hands. Do you think the agility — the flexibility — of your hands might be affected? Permanently, I mean?
[Stops laughing]
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
Mr Botherit: Did you attack Seb Mantegna’s major work?
Riley: Why would I have done that?
Mr Botherit: I
seem to recall that everyone who went to that exhibition said that yours and Seb’s were the best. So. Destroy Seb’s and your work is the best.
Riley: Seb’s was better. Destroying it wouldn’t have changed that.
Mr Botherit: Maybe you had an emotional motive? We know there’s romance between you and Lydia. We also know — everyone knows — that Lydia and Seb were once together. Perhaps in a jealous rage . . . ?
Riley: There’s no romance between Lydia and me. Ask Lydia.
EVIDENCE OF AMELIA DAMASKI
Mr Botherit: Amelia, do you think Riley might have attacked Seb’s major work?
Amelia: No.
Mr Botherit: It’s just that — he’s obviously an angry person. And that attack was an angry one.
Amelia (laughs): That’s the best you’ve got?
Mr Botherit: All right. Let’s move on to the final ground — it’s been suggested that you may have deceived people, that you had some ulterior motive for your friendships here at Ashbury. Perhaps you could help us figure out the nature of those friendships? Did you genuinely like anybody? Was there, for example, a secret romance between you and Toby? Were you and Riley —
Amelia: Are you asking these questions because they’re relevant or because you want the gossip?
Mr Botherit: Can I be frank with you, Amelia? You are not helping yourself here. The grounds for termination are . . . well, let’s go back to your friend in the mental institution. Would you —
Amelia: It’s okay, Mr B. I get it. You think I made her up — you think I projected my own heartbreak onto an imaginary friend. You think the fact that my mum and I don’t talk, that she didn’t bother to come see me at the hospital, means I’m a sad little abandoned girl, and that I went to the park to kill myself. Don’t worry about it. I’m used to people telling me the truth is my imagination.
Mr Botherit: You seem very angry, Amelia.
Amelia (laughs): Maybe I attacked Seb’s major work.
EVIDENCE OF RILEY T SMITH
Mr Botherit: We’ve all read your ghost story, Riley. And, well, we just want to know why you were friends with these people if you didn’t like them?
[Riley gives a steady, inscrutable gaze]
[Long pause]
Mr Botherit: Riley, you do understand that if these scholarships are terminated with retrospective effect, not only will you not get the bonus money, you’ll also, technically, be required to pay everything else back?
Riley (a brief breath of laughter): Okay.
Mr Botherit: And you have nothing else to say in your defence?
[Riley slowly shakes his head, the same ironic glint in his eye]
Mr Botherit: Well, that concludes our interviews. The committee will meet next Friday to . . . finalise the decision, and we’ll let you and Amelia know the outcome.
5.
MONDAY
Dear Amelia,
If I were you, I wouldn’t want to see me either. Fair enough. I’ll stop stalking you with phone calls.
But I’ll be at the Blue Danish at 3 this afternoon. I’ll wear one of those Freddy masks from the Nightmare movies so you won’t have to look at me.
Not really. I haven’t got one.
I’d like to say I’m sorry, and try to explain. I know: who cares what I’d like, so you can tell me where to go on that issue. But I’ve also got an idea that you might want to hear.
I hope to see you there.
Lydia
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Monday 15 December
Re:
The Scholarship Committee Meeting
Dear Mr Botherit,
I understand that the committee is having a meeting this Friday night, to finalise the termination of the scholarships of Amelia Damaski and Riley T Smith. I have read the transcript of interviews and the grounds for termination.
I hereby propose to attend this meeting.
Even though Friday is the day of the HSC results and I was planning to have a party at Lyd’s to celebrate/distract myself from misery that night.
Nevertheless, I will be at your meeting.
Until then,
I remain,
Your former student,
Emily Thompson
(and afterwards, well, I will still be her.)
TUESDAY
Dear Mrs Damaski and Mr O’Doherty,
I am a concerned resident of the Hills District, and have followed the news of the attack upon you, Mr O’Doherty, with great sympathy.
I hope that you are well on the road to recovery.
I am writing now because I have some important information concerning your daughter, Amelia, and her boyfriend, Riley T Smith. (*You will recognise his name as he is the person who attacked you.*)
I believe that my information may be relevant in the police prosecution of Riley. It also pertains to a very large sum of money that Amelia and Riley may soon receive as part of their Ashbury scholarship.
Of course, I know that your daughter’s welfare is your primary concern; however, I would imagine that you would certainly be entitled — legally, ethically and morally — to this money, as compensation for the damage Riley has done to your home and your health.
May I be so bold as to suggest a meeting with you both at the Blue Danish Café at 6 pm tonight?
Yours,
A Friend
Dear Mr O’Doherty,
You might have noticed that this letter is sitting exactly where your laptop computer was when you set out tonight.
Where could your laptop be?
And what might be on that laptop? Could there be files that would be of great interest to the police?
I am a fair person, so let’s make a deal. It’s a one-night only offer. I need you to do one very simple thing for me.
I will call you at 9.00 pm to tell you what it is.
Once I know you have done as I ask, I will simply return the computer to you (with the photos deleted — I hope you understand I feel compelled to do that).
I give you my word that matters will end there.
I am a person who can be trusted and, as they say on television, what choice do you have but to trust me?
Cheers,
A Stranger
WEDNESDAY
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Wednesday 17 December
Re:
The Scholarship Committee Meeting
Dear Emily,
Thank you for your email.
I’m sure that anything you have to say at the meeting this Friday would be most enlightening and, in all honesty, I’d like to have you there very much.
However, I’m afraid that the meeting is only open to committee members. If you have anything you’d like me to share with the committee, perhaps you could put it in writing and I will pass it on to them?
Good luck with the results on Friday! Hope you’re enjoying the real world!
Your affectionate (former) teacher,
Chris Botherit
PS I wonder how you got access to those grounds for termination, and that interview transcript? I rather believed that those were highly confidential! (No mention will be made here of your friend Cassie and the fact that her mother is on the committee …)
Dear Mrs Damaski and Mr O’Doherty,
I’m so sorry to have wasted your time at the Blue Danish last night!
Upon closer reflection, it occurred to me that I should speak to the police about the information I had about Riley — and they had the audacity to say it wasn’t relevant!
Also, I’ve spoken to a lawyer friend who says you couldn’t get access to the scholarship bonus after all. And I hear that they probably won’t get it! (The Scholarship Committee is meeting this Friday and everybody says they are going to terminate the scholarship retrospe
ctively, which would mean that Amelia and Riley miss out on the money.)
Apologies again,
and hoping for a safer future for us all,
A Friend
Castle Hill Police Records
STATEMENT OF PATRICK SEAN O’DOHERTY
Wednesday 17 December, 11.25 pm
I would like to withdraw my previous statement about the incident in my home on Wednesday 15 October.
I have now remembered that what actually happened was that Riley Smith knocked on my door and introduced himself. He said he was my stepdaughter’s boyfriend. My wife and I have not had any contact with my stepdaughter since she ran away when she was 13, so it was a real shock to me to meet her boyfriend.
Riley said he was there to try to patch things up between my stepdaughter and me.
I suggested to him that this was none of his business, and our conversation then turned heated.
I am sorry to say that I shoved at him, as I was feeling not a little angry. Now that I reflect on it, he was probably only trying to defend himself when he punched me back. It is true that we fought for a few minutes but I don’t think it would be right to say it was anybody’s fault.
I think that I got a bump on the head and that’s why I was confused when I spoke to the police before.
I have now got this clear, and I am very sorry for wasting police time.
Patrick Sean O’Doherty
THURSDAY
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Date:
Thursday 18 December
Re:
Meetings
Dear Mr Botherit,
I hear that Em is planning to come to the committee meeting about Amelia and Riley tomorrow night.
Dreaming of Amelia Page 34
