An Accusation: A Novel

by Wendy James

  There was nothing to do but brazen it out. Honor made it clear that she wasn’t in the least fazed by the clamoring press, gave a sigh that was full of repressed impatience, raised a disdainful eyebrow.

  “This has been a clear miscarriage of justice, based on insinuations rather than facts.” Her voice was clear, certain. “Ellie will release a statement about Mr. Lee’s allegations shortly, and we will be talking to the DPP. I have no doubt that my client was abducted and held by Suzannah Wells. We will get to the bottom of these absurd claims, and my client will be vindicated.”

  “But what about Sally O’Halloran’s testimony, Honor? Is it true that you visited Suzannah’s home just before Ellie appeared?”

  “Did you visit Sally O’Halloran?”

  Honor gave a cool smile. “Both of these women were known to me before Ellie Canning appeared, and both of these visits were entirely unconnected to the case.”

  “Why did you go down into the basement, Honor?”

  She allowed herself a hard laugh. “I think Miss O’Halloran might have been a little confused about that.”

  The defense team had exited the court, followed by Suzannah, Chip, and Mary, and she was saved from any more scrutiny. As Honor watched the crowd surge back up the steps, Suzannah looked across at her, and the two women made eye contact. Honor turned away quickly, but she had seen the burning anger in the other woman’s face. And the questions.

  HONOR: JULY 2018

  It’s not like she’d planned any of it. The girl had approached her outside the office when Honor left in the late afternoon. She had been annoyed at first, thinking she was being hit up for drug money, that the girl was a junkie. Because that’s what she looked like at first glance: underfed, half-dressed, her hair in need of a wash.

  “You’re Honor Fielding, aren’t you?” The girl’s middle-class accent was jarringly at odds with her appearance.

  “Yes, but how . . . ?”

  “You made a speech at the Abbey school last year. I’m a student there. Ellie. We had a conversation. You gave me your card—told me to give you a call when I’d finished school.” She gave a sickly smile. “Well, I’ve finished.”

  Honor recalled the conversation, the girl’s confidence, her bold admission. “My God. I remember you. What’s happened?”

  “I need your help,” the girl said, her desperation apparent now. “I really need your help.”

  The girl’s plight had moved Honor unaccountably, and she had made a split-second decision—for once not thinking about motives or possible consequences—and led her to her parked car. She had driven straight to her apartment, the girl slumped beside her in a drugged stupor. She had roused her gently, guided her to the elevator, gone straight up to the penthouse. Dougal was away on a golfing trip, and Honor had planned a lazy night in, a meal of cheese, crackers, and enough wine to blot out her recent humiliation. Instead, she’d ministered to the poor, silly girl—prepared coffee, sat her before the fire, fed her a bowl of reheated minestrone and hot buttered sourdough. She’d poured her a drink, cold white wine, a generous glass. Then let her tell her story.

  ELLIE: JULY 2018

  Ellie had been cautiously optimistic about the latest plan for a mother-daughter reunion. Her mother had just been released from a stint in rehab and had written to tell Ellie that she’d been out and clean for three months. She’d been set up in a nice flat in Surry Hills, and she wanted to see Ellie. The letter had been followed by a phone call, and her mother had sounded good, better than Ellie could remember. They’d even had a proper conversation, her mum asking her how she was doing at school, listening to her replies. When Ellie told her she had to visit Sydney for the interview at St. Anne’s College, her mother had pressed her to visit, suggesting she stay for the holidays.

  “I haven’t seen you for so long, darlin’,” she’d said huskily.

  When Ellie had explained that she’d need to study for her trial exams, her mother had pressed even harder. Her place was quiet, she’d said, and she had work at a local café during the day, so she wouldn’t bother Ellie. She could study in the flat or go to the library, even, and then the two of them could spend the evenings together. She wasn’t much of a cook, it was true, but there was always takeaway, and how fun to curl up on the lounge together at night, watching The Bachelor and eating corn chips. The plan appealed—there was no particular joy for Ellie in her current foster home—and the wheels were set in motion. Her mother’s story had checked out; her living conditions had been deemed appropriate by the powers that be. Ellie would turn eighteen during the holidays, and after that the department’s responsibility was negligible.

  Ellie had caught the train up from school, arrived early on the Friday evening, and caught the bus to her mother’s flat. From the outside, the flats had seemed respectable enough—an old redbrick block of six, on a tree-lined street. Her mother’s place was at the top, and Ellie had tramped slowly up the two flights of stairs, her heavy backpack jolting, and paused, slightly out of breath, when she reached the dim foyer. Before she could knock, her mother’s door opened, and a woman came crashing out, red-faced, angry, lugging a flat-screen television. She’d taken no notice of Ellie, pushed past her, still yelling obscenities as she blundered down the stairs.

  Her mother followed, dressed in pajama bottoms, an old T-shirt, and socks, an unlit cigarette in one hand, a bottle in the other. She paused momentarily when she saw Ellie, grinned, and gave her a wink before screaming down the stairwell, “Bitch. You’re a bitch, Stacey.” She’d broken off in a coughing fit and taken a swig from the bottle, then turned to her daughter, who was waiting patiently for her attention, resigned and barely surprised. “G’day, my baby. I forgot you were coming tonight. But good timing, eh? Give us twenty bucks and I’ll go get us a feed.”

  Her mother took the twenty dollars, which Ellie had handed over reluctantly, and stamped down the stairs. Ellie went inside and waited, although her first instinct had been to run. The flat was freezing, filthy, and almost completely bare—the only item of furniture a grimy suede couch in the middle of the lounge room. It was hard to imagine how the department had deemed it suitable for Ellie, although she supposed that the absence of furniture might have been a recent development.

  Her mother returned half an hour later, but she brought no food, and there was no possibility of any sort of conversation. Within minutes her mother was dead to the world, curled on the worn carpet. Ellie covered her with a dirty leopard-print fleece she found covering the window in the bedroom, then locked and chained the front door, jamming a chair under the doorknob for good measure. She cleared a space on the couch and sat down. Took a swig from her mother’s bottle and considered her options.

  There were, of course, girls in her year she could appeal to for a bed for the night—or even for the entire break, if it came to that. The four who had traveled up in the train with her—Annabel, Grace, Eliza, and Sophie—all lived close by in the eastern suburbs. They were her friends, she supposed, as much as any of the Abbey girls could be considered friends, but the thought of having to disclose anything at all about her circumstances, the disaster that was her family life, made her feel physically ill. Being on a scholarship was only just acceptable—being a foster child with a junkie mother was something she didn’t need to share. She could imagine the patronizing concern of the parents, the barely hidden disdain of her well-bred peers.

  Clearly, there was no possibility of Ellie spending the holidays as planned now that the fantasy of mother-daughter bonding had dissolved. Ellie had the college interview early the next morning, so she was stuck there overnight, but she didn’t have to go to sleep just yet. There was nothing to do here—no TV, no internet, just the ragged snoring of her slack-jawed, waste-of-space mother. The night was young, and so was Ellie. She was in the big city, and she was hungry and thirsty—and not just for food.

  For as long as she could remember, Ellie had been hungry. When she was a small child, the hunger had often been literal.
But as she grew older, even though she’d been given everything she needed in a material sense, that feeling of emptiness remained a constant. By the time she was fourteen, what she hungered for had changed: Ellie didn’t want bedtime stories and birthday parties anymore—she wanted booze, boys, drugs, freedom. Not necessarily in that order.

  When her Manning High English teacher had told her that the Abbey was offering senior scholarships to bright girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and suggested she apply, Ellie suddenly realized that she was hungry again. Perhaps this could be her way out. Her way up. Perhaps this would satisfy that gnawing pain.

  And so it had. For a time, anyway.

  But the hunger had gradually returned. And now, after three years of hard slog and considerable success—her academics were first-rate, her behavior impeccable, her reputation stainless—Ellie didn’t want any of it. She was over the constant effort, the pretense of virtue, the wank. She was sick of having to work so hard for everything when the other girls had it so easy. They didn’t even have to try, most of them: the good life was theirs for the taking, regardless of their efforts, their talents, their intelligence. The school motto was Laborare ut procul: work hard, go far. What bullshit when they would all go far regardless.

  And Ellie knew—because who didn’t?—that there were other options available to smart, good-looking girls like her. There were other ways to get on in the world, other ways of making it. Other ways of satisfying her hunger.

  There’d been a speaker at the school at last year’s valedictory. She was some hotshot media person . . . what was her title? Celebrity manager? Agent? She’d started out as a country-town newspaper journalist. She spoke about her varied career, and then, as all their visitors inevitably did, about the great potential, the amazing lives they were heading into, the immense privilege they enjoyed, the duty they had to work hard, do good, go far. Laborare ut fucking procul. The world, she’d said, was their oyster, and they would be its pearls.

  Her speech had been lame, but it was the woman’s actual job description that had made Ellie sit up and take notice. She made people famous, made people rich. In her introduction, the head had included a list of these people—most of them famous for their sporting prowess, their acting, their beauty, while others were high-profile victims or occasionally criminals. All of them, it seemed to Ellie, had managed to succeed without the years of drudgery and sacrifice she was facing.

  After the speech, she’d been introduced to the woman as one of the school’s brightest sparks—“so much potential,” “we’re very excited about her future.” Ellie and the woman, who had some weird old-fashioned name—Faith, Hope, Chastity—had stood chatting awkwardly for a few minutes. Ellie had mouthed all the usual crap about her hopes and dreams, the bright, shiny future that lay ahead of her, that gleaming oyster world. The woman had smiled at her vaguely, murmured the expected things, too: So very lucky, such an opportunity. Make sure you don’t waste it.

  Ellie had taken a deep breath. “To tell you the truth, what I’d really like is to be rich and famous,” she’d said softly, giving the woman her sweetest smile. “Although I’m not sure how, exactly. Not yet, anyway.”

  The woman had snapped to attention at that, given her a calculating look. Laughed. She’d dug in her handbag, handed Ellie a business card.

  “Give me a call when you finish school,” she’d said. “And I’ll see what I can do to help.”

  Now, at her mother’s, Ellie changed into her tightest jeans, her highest heels. She outlined her eyes, darkened her lips, straightened her hair. She looked not only older but different. Her eyes in the mirror looked back at her harshly, her gaze cool and hard and blank. The innocent schoolgirl was gone; in her place stood someone else entirely.

  She walked into the first pub she encountered. It was dim, seedy, and full of half-drunk middle-aged men more interested in the football that was playing on enormous screens than the company. No one had turned to look at her as she walked up to the bar, and the barmaid barely glanced at her ID when she asked for a vodka. She sat at the bar, downed the drink thirstily, ordered another. There was a man sitting alone across from her. Unlike the other clientele, he wasn’t watching the screens but had his phone out, was busily texting. He was far more attractive than all the other men in the bar: Asian, with a full head of hair, a taut jaw, good skin, looked fit, well heeled. He wasn’t that old, either, only in his early thirties, she thought.

  When the man noticed her looking at him and gave an expectant, knowing smile, her hunger sharpened, clarified. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked toward him.

  From then it had moved quickly. One drink, then two, and then a third, seated at a table at the back of the bar now, a conversation about nothing much. He told her bits and pieces about what he did, who he was. His name was David, he said, he lived in the city, took photographs in his spare time. It was only a hobby really, portraits mostly. She had no idea whether he was telling her the truth, but it didn’t matter. Everything she told him was a lie anyway. She said she was twenty-three, that her name was Olivia, that she was studying medicine. That she’d moved here from the Gold Coast and modeled to support herself.

  “A medical student, eh? Smart as well as beautiful.” His drink went down quickly. He wiped his hand across his mouth and bared beautiful white teeth. “Why don’t we head back to my studio,” he suggested, the smile never wavering. “Maybe I can add a few things to your portfolio.”

  It was tempting. Ellie thought hard, did some quick calculations. She could have fun, but she needn’t burn all her bridges—she had to go to that interview. One night at her mother’s wouldn’t be that hard.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow then?”

  “Why not?”

  The next morning she got up early, donned the modest A-line skirt, sensibly low-heeled boots, and black cashmere sweater she’d purchased for such occasions. She pulled her hair back into a low ponytail, applied her makeup sparingly. Her mother was semiconscious when she emerged from the bathroom. Ellie dropped another twenty on her lap, blew her a kiss, grabbed her bag, and left.

  The interview was a success. She was given a tour of the college first—taken to see the accommodation, the dining hall, the common rooms, and the grounds—and had been disappointed by the meanness of the bedrooms, the down-at-heel shabbiness of it all. A faint whiff of hospital—bland food and disinfectant—overlaid with a slightly musty smell permeated everything. From the little she saw of them, the students were a dreary bunch—all nerdy-looking, earnest, even tamer than the Abbey girls.

  According to her guides, St. Anne’s had a reputation for producing the best scholars—professors, surgeons, scientists, politicians, women who ended up devising public policy, sitting on boards. Quiet trailblazers rather than celebrities. Still, it was her best bet if she wanted to go to university; none of the other colleges offered financial support that was quite as generous. And it was better than the alternative—some grubby share house with a bunch of public-school losers and the drudgery of weekend work in hospitality to pay the bills.

  The interview panel was surprisingly tough, and there was no way to gauge their attitude toward her, but Mrs. Whittaker, a college alumna and head of the charitable board that provided the scholarships, shook her hand warmly.

  “I can’t say too much, Ellie,” she said. “But I’m confident we’ll be seeing you here next year. You’re exactly the sort of girl our program was set up for. To be honest, your school recommendation sounded too good to be true, but now that we’ve met you—well, it’s clear you’re everything they say you are. And more.” She patted her hand. “Now, back to school and get those silly examinations out of the way, and we’ll be seeing you back here in the new year.”

  Ellie gave a shy smile, and her thank-you had been full of gush and enthusiasm, but she almost ran out of the gates at the end of the long gravel driveway, she was so relieved to escape the fusty earnestness of the place.


  It wasn’t until she climbed onto the crammed bus heading back to the city that she could breathe again, even though she had to stand, pushed up hard against a seat, a dirty old woman glaring and muttering in the corner, a couple of doped-out kids giggling, the middle-aged man behind her moving closer than was strictly necessary.

  This was a scene she could deal with, a world she could understand.

  Ellie had missed that train home after the interview at St. Anne’s. But the missing had been deliberate. There’d been no coffee at the café, no meeting with the friendly middle-aged kidnapper. Instead, she’d made a quick phone call, changed back into her jeans in the toilets at Central, made up her face, let down her hair, and done her best to look as unlike her scholarship-girl self as possible. It wasn’t all that hard; perhaps that self was never real to begin with.

  And the man she was going to meet offered a world that, right now, felt more real than St. Anne’s or the Abbey ever could.

  HONOR: JULY 2018

  Initially, Honor had tried to persuade her to go back to school. “It’s not like you’ve burned your bridges,” she said. “You can tell them you’ve had a difficult time with your mother, that you couldn’t get any work done.” She even offered to call them on her behalf. To drive her down there. “And you’re a smart girl,” she added. “A couple of weeks of not studying?” She clicked her fingers. “So what?”