by Tony Black
Clay wondered if the cops might be thinking the same as him after all. ‘I guess you’ve seen the police a lot over the past couple of weeks.’
‘Yeah. They were here this morning asking questions. They were here a few days days ago to tell us it was her body they found at Peterborough. They were here before that when we reported her missing.’
‘When did you last see Kerry?’
Brian patted his hands together again. ‘I think Kerry was working at a function on a Sunday night. I remember thinking it was weird, like “who has a function on a Sunday night?” She didn’t say where. We didn’t ask. She came out here for lunch that Sunday. Last time we saw her.’
Clay felt his questions were sounding more and more like a cop’s, but Brian didn’t seem to mind. ‘And when did you realise Kerry was missing, Mr Collins?’
‘Not until the Tuesday. Her housemate called. Said she hadn’t been home for two days. Wondered if she was here.’
‘Must have given you all a fright.’
‘Everyone was calling everyone. It was frantic. We called all her friends, but nobody knew anything… That’s when we told the police and they started looking around for her. Then a bit later on, the following Sunday, she… she washed up in Peterborough.’ Brian let out a deep exhalation and sat still for the first time since he had opened the door. His hands rested quietly on his round belly.
‘I knew it was her,’ said Brian. ‘As soon as I read the story in the paper.’ His eyes swam, then locked onto Clay. ‘You wrote that story, didn’t you?’
‘It was mine, yes.’
Brian Collins nodded. ‘I knew it was her,’ he repeated in a low voice. ‘They only confirmed it the other day, when they told us. But I knew. Dorothy didn’t want to believe it. I played along with her. “You’re right, Dottie,” I said. “It can’t be her. Our Kerry’ll turn up. She’ll be OK.”’ He turned and looked at a closed door in the hallway beyond the lounge room. ‘Do you know my wife hasn’t left the bedroom except for the funeral?’ He shook his head. ‘Poor Dottie.’
The whirring of Clay’s dictaphone and the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece were the only sounds in the room for a few moments, until Brian started sobbing. He was lost to himself, the others in the room an irrelevance. Clay could think of no clearer picture to symbolise a family’s heart-torn grief. He wanted to reach out, offer comfort, but he knew the situation was beyond retrieval by the blandishments of a stranger who’d only just walked through the front door.
He reached down and turned off the recorder.
Chapter 7
Clay had hardly slept.
The fact that Gabby Petrie was in his bed beside him, snoring gently beneath her mess of red wine-coloured hair, had a little bit to do with it, but his insomnia was predominantly related to Kerry Collins.
He’d stayed back late at the office working on her obituary, turning the taped interview with Brian Collins into a touching article he was proud of. After that, he’d been in need of drink and called Gabby, making good on his promise.
But much later that night, when he’d put his head down to try and sleep, he could hear Brian’s words and low sobs playing over and over in his head. He must have drifted off at some point, if only for a matter of minutes, because he was aware of a dream. He was sitting in the Collins’ house in Port Fairy, right where he’d sat in the lounge room that day, with Bec beside him and Brian opposite in the comfy leather chair. In this dream, Clay’s eyes were drawn to one of the framed photos of Kerry on the wall, but the more he stared at it, the more it changed. Kerry’s skin went pale, bloodless. Her mouth opened into a silent scream and her lips rotted away. Her eyes shrivelled and were gone, leaving behind two black craters. It was the face of the body in the seaweed at the Bay of Martyrs. It was a face that hadn’t bothered him until now. Now it was a person. Now it was haunting his dreams.
Clay shivered in the early morning light. He was drenched in sweat.
He rolled out of bed, careful and quiet so as not to disturb Gabby, and pulled on a pair of grey tracksuit pants before walking into the lounge room. The coffee table, a strange looking wooden hexagon he took a degree of pride in, was covered with the detritus of the night before: two empty wine bottles, an overflowing ashtray, records out of their sleeves, half a joint, and a small bag holding a couple of buds of weed. Clay liked Gabby because she was fun and she liked to party, but the trade for the preliminary autopsy report had grown into a lot more than just dinner and a pack of biscuits.
Clay opened the curtains to better survey the aftermath of the previous evening. A storey below, Warrnambool’s main drag – Liebig Street – was starting to stir. The breakfast cafés and coffee hotspots were swinging into action. Tables and chairs getting set up on footpaths. A street sweeper making a final pass. A magpie calling in one of the leafy trees that threw stark morning shadows onto the shopfronts.
Clay heard the soft rumble of kitchen machinery below his lounge floor. The ever-present hum of fridges was joined by the gurgle of a coffee maker and the blitzkrieg of a blender, all muffled by the sandwich of ceiling, wiring, floorboards, and carpet beneath his feet. Already he was starting to feel a bit better. The normality of daily waking life and its soundscape was like placing a hand on a wall to steady himself after the unsettling tremors of his attempts to sleep.
He pulled a cigarette from a near-empty pack and lit up as he cleared away the mess. Bottles in the recycling, ashtray emptied, records back in their sleeves. By the time he’d finished the smoke, the lounge room and Clay’s mind were almost back to normal.
A sleepy stumble of feet on carpet caught Clay’s attention as he flicked ash from the cigarette into the clean ashtray.
‘Hey there, cowboy,’ said Gabby. She looked dishevelled as she struggled back into the eye-catching black dress she’d worn the night before. At dinner it had shimmered – this morning it looked like lifeless fabric. Gabby’s hair had been suppressed into a loose approximation of order, but the remains of her eye make-up scrubbed the illusion of control.
‘Hey, yourself. You sleep all right?’
‘More like passed out. I’m still wrecked.’
‘Just like old times, Gabby.’
‘Funny… Zip me up.’ She spun around, wobbling a little as she completed the one hundred and eighty degree turn.
Clay got up from the couch and walked towards her. The sight of her bare back and the obvious lack of a bra strap threw up flashbacks of last night’s activities. He zipped up the back of her dress with care, catching a whiff of the last hints of a familiar perfume; it was now mixed with cigarette smoke and boozy sweat into a scent that somehow still managed to be alluring.
Gabby turned and they were standing close together. She perched up on her toes and pressed a brief kiss onto Clay’s lips. ‘I gotta get to work.’
‘Me, too. Thank the gods it’s Friday, right?’
She gave him another peck. ‘You should quit smoking.’
‘So should you.’
Another kiss. This one longer and with eyes closed, accompanied by heavy inhales and the space between their bodies disappearing.
Clay pulled away first. ‘Work.’
‘Right.’ She turned and headed for the door. Fetching her high heels and handbag from the hallway floor on the way, she waved a hand over her head without turning around. ‘Thanks for dinner. I’ll call ya.’
‘Bye, Gabby.’
The door clicked closed behind her as Clay stumbled into the bathroom. When the first jets of the shower hit his face he silently cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to sleep with Gabby. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. It was always the way after a few drinks and a few joints, and it had caused him plenty of troubles in the past, including with Gabby.
There had been references made to that during and after dinner, and Clay had started to recall a tricky extrication a year ago. Gabby had wanted an exclusive relationship, Clay didn’t want a commitment. It was the usual clichéd story, and it was suc
h a regular occurrence for Clay that he’d become something of a master of the tricky extrication. Not that he was proud of the fact, but it was a fact.
He wondered what he was doing now, what new depths of trouble he was digging for himself. Gabby was good fun and bloody useful, but while Clay still didn’t want to get involved he doubted she was thinking the same way. She was as bad as him in her own way; she knew the score, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Dried and dressed, he made his way out the door, down the stairs, and through the café’s back door. Kitchen staff waved hello as he weaved his way between them and out past the counter, where his morning order – a double-shot black coffee, half a sugar – sat waiting for him.
‘You’re a gem, Wendy,’ he called to the middle-aged woman at the coffee machine, raising his disposable cup in salute.
‘I’m surprised you’re on time this morning after seeing that red-haired thing doing the walk of shame through the car park with her heels in her hand,’ said Wendy, giving him a fake look of disapproval.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, as he plonked some coins on the counter. He knew full well, and that feeling of having acted a little less than perfectly towards Gabby poked at his conscience again. Bec would call him a user. She’d be bang on the money, too.
Clay headed for the door, eyes down to avoid Wendy. He was almost out when he saw it. A copy of the day’s paper lay face up on an empty table, and there was the face of Kerry Collins. She was the image of innocence, with her sweet smile, button nose, and youthful face, bordered by an angelic veil of blonde hair.
Clay halted, drew steady breath. There was something about seeing a story in print that made it real for the first time. The visit out to the bay, the talks to cops, fishing for more detail where and when he could, none of it seemed like anything more than a job, another day at the office. The first sight of the paper made everything real. This was news, a tragedy in his own town. When he picked up the paper he was the kid who’d just heard his dog had been run over, tasted his first hurt in life. Clay’s mother had broken the news then, but it hadn’t sank in; he didn’t cry until the policeman came to the door with Bindy’s collar. He cried then, and for a long time after. There were some wounds that just didn’t heal.
‘SHE WAS ONLY 18’ read the headline. Still a kid herself, it smacked him now. She’d lost out on so much of life. He lowered the paper, looked away. Sun split the leaves of the trees, blasted the asphalt with fierce white light.
‘Christ… eighteen.’
What kind of an age was that? He knew exactly: it was the same age as his own daughter.
Chapter 8
Bec pushed open the doors of the Hotel Warrnambool.
It was 5 p.m. on a Friday and the place was already packed with the post-work crowd, suits and business frocks, the first beers and wines of the day, the babble of banter over the sounds of some acoustic Eighties-sounding balladry Bec couldn’t identify coming through the speakers.
Clay had raced out of work a few minutes before her and had been adamant they meet up at The Warrny for a drink after work. He hadn’t given her time to say no.
She scanned the crowd, but couldn’t see him. This was the last place she wanted to be. It had been a long week and yesterday’s death knock at the Collins’ place had taken her last vestiges of vitality. She was not opposed to the idea of a drink, but she would much rather be doing it on the porch of her rented farmhouse on the edge of Koroit, far away from the bustle of a busy pub.
Bec weaved her way through the bar with practised ease. While her photographic skills had taken her around the world, she’d also done a bit of bar work here and there to help pay for the next plane ticket or the next week’s rent. Working in pubs taught her many things, not least of which was the instinctive ability to find a path through a crowded room.
She made it to the bar and ordered. One wine, only one wine. See why Clay was so keen for her to be here. Then drive home. Maybe another glass of wine in the bath. Read a few more chapters of The Dressmaker. Fall asleep. Yeah, that sounded nice.
The barman, a round man with a jolly face and a cheery-looking white moustache, returned with a glass of the house red. It was enormous, probably the equivalent of two glasses in one. Aussie measures, she thought, they sure don’t let you go home thirsty here.
Scanning the crowd once more, she spotted Clay. He was out in the smoking area, a partially undercover balcony at the rear of the pub, visible through two large glass doors. It looked a lot less crowded out there. Clay was by himself, sipping a pint of beer from one hand, a lit cigarette burning in the other.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ she said as she reached him, sitting her glass of wine on the high table he was leaning on.
‘There’s probably a lot you don’t know about me. Want one?’
‘God, no. Only idiots smoke.’
‘You got that right.’ He hadn’t even looked at her. His gaze was drawn to the bank of huge TV screens up on the wall, each one tuned to a different sport. He appeared to be watching the cricket and the fact he hadn’t even glanced at her seemed rude.
‘Did you invite me here to watch the cricket?’ she said, unable to prevent the edge from creeping into her voice.
Clay sucked on his cigarette and turned away from the TV, meeting her eyes briefly before seeking out the ashtray. ‘Sorry. I don’t think I was even really watching that. I just kinda vagued out.’
Bec noticed the darkness under his eyes, the haunted look within them. ‘Are you OK?’
He creased up his face, then let it settle back to a more familiar form. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I invited you here because I thought you might want to meet someone. It’s about the Collins girl. Ah, here he is.’
Before she could say anything, they were joined by a handsome man with short-cropped blonde hair. He looked to be in his early or mid-thirties and carried himself with a quiet strength to match the lightly muscled frame beneath his red polo shirt.
‘Bec, this is Senior Constable Eddie Boulton. Eddie, this is Bec O’Connor from the paper.’ Clay tipped the last of his pint down his throat. ‘Now, about that beer I owe ya…’
‘Yeah, a pint of something that’s not crap would be great,’ said Eddie.
‘I’ll be right back.’
Clay headed into the bar, leaving Eddie and Bec to share a little awkward smile.
‘So—’
‘How—’
The simultaneous attempt to start the conversation added to the uncoordinated feeling of the moment, like they’d just bumped heads trying to pick up the same dropped dollar.
‘Sorry, you go,’ said Bec.
‘I was just going to ask how long you’ve been at the paper,’ said Eddie.
‘Two weeks. I only came to Australia about a month ago.’
‘Your accent? Scottish?’
‘Irish.’
‘Beautiful country. What made you leave Ireland and come to Australia?’
‘Oh, no, I haven’t been in Ireland for a long time.’ She froze for a second, assailed by the memory of her last visit. The funeral. The anger. Her mother, always her mother.
She sipped wine slowly as she gathered her thoughts. ‘I was in South East Asia before coming here. Change of pace, and all that. How about yourself? What’s your story?’
She listened in polite silence with the appropriate amount of nodding as Eddie gave a quick rundown of his career in the force, and was glad when Clay returned with two pints of beer – not because Eddie bored her, more that her reserves of small talk and polite chit-chat were running low and had been for some time. She was too used to being on her own. Still, Eddie seemed like a nice guy.
‘Thanks for the beer.’ Eddie nodded at Clay. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to come good on that.’
‘Hey, I’m good on my word.’
‘Right.’
‘Plus, I wanted to pick your brain on something.’
‘Here we go. Ulterior
motive. What is it now, Clay? If it’s about Gabby Petrie, I hear you’re already handling that situation pretty well.’
Clay looked at his shoes in a manner Bec took to be embarrassment, before reaching for his cigarettes. He made what appeared to be a concerted effort to avoid her gaze. He was hiding something, so she called him on it.
‘Who’s Gabby Petrie?’ she asked.
Clay sipped his beer and set it down, then lit his smoke, all in one deft move that seemed to be about keeping his mouth occupied. Eddie answered for him: ‘She’s a pretty little thing in the prosecution office. Word around the force is that Gabby and Mr Moloney here were seen out for dinner last night. And word is she spent the night at Clay’s.’ Eddie laughed a little at his friend’s discomfort.
Bec’s gaze filled up with a wide-eyed surprise. She felt a hint of disdain creeping into her expression, but she tried to hide it. She was looking at Clay, not Eddie. ‘Really?’
‘Good to see the constabulary are focused on the big issues.’ Clay was still avoiding Bec’s eyes. ‘Anyway,’ he said, sharpening his tone in an attempt to regain control of the conversation, ‘I wanted to ask you about the Kerry Collins case.’
‘Aww, jeez, Clay, come on, you know I’m not supposed to talk to you about that.’
‘Eddie, it’s OK. We’re just a couple of old mates talking about work over a beer. No big deal.’
Eddie was looking around the smokers’ balcony. It was a large area, with only a couple of dozen people in it, and Bec watched as the cop assessed each and every one of them in a split second. Comfortable there was no one around to cause him concern, he seemed to relax a little into his beer.
‘What do you wanna know?’
Clay took a drag of his smoke. ‘Is it being treated as a murder investigation?’
Eddie almost spat his sip of beer out at Clay’s question. ‘What? God, no. Why would it be? The preliminary autopsy report suggested it was an accident.’
‘So how did she die?’ said Clay.
‘I’m pretty sure you saw the report. She drowned. Probably banged her head and then drowned.’
