by Jaye Ford
Tilda’s gold bracelets tinkled softly as she lifted a hand and slid it through Jax’s elbow.
‘I can tell Kate Walsh those things,’ Jax said.
‘Yes, you can.’
‘I think she should know.’
‘Then I think you should tell her.’
‘Aiden Hawke wouldn’t give me her number.’
‘Then you’ve got some homework to do.’
19
Jax waited until Zoe was in bed before going online and quickly discovered her first problem. The Newcastle that most people referred to was a sprawling assortment of suburbs: old mining towns, mostly, that had expanded and melded together over more than a hundred years and were now home to almost half a million Novocastrians. Technically, though, Newcastle was a postal zone, home to the Central Business District, which meant when she typed ‘Walsh’ and ‘Newcastle’ into her search engine, all she got was one Walsh whose address, according to Tilda, was just off an inner-city shopping mall.
It was fifteen years since Jax had lived with her aunt, the BHP steelworks had closed, old suburbs had been rejuvenated and others had grown. She didn’t know the new names and couldn’t remember all the ones that had been here before, so for speed and ease, she went back to paper and ink and pulled out Tilda’s local phone book.
There were two columns of Walshes, a couple of hundred names – not as bad as it might have been if the family lived in Sydney. Jax worked through the list, taking in the B Walshes, K Walshes and C Walshes (in case Kate was short for Catherine) and pulled Tilda into the exercise to decide which addresses were too far afield to be loosely called Newcastle.
‘Thirty-one names,’ she told Tilda as she tossed her pen on the coffee table.
Tilda pulled the notepad closer. ‘That’s a lot.’
‘It’s not too bad.’ Jax had worked phone lists before, tracking down people in flooded suburbs, ringing homes near bushfires to ask if they could see smoke – and, one crazy day, trying to find a couple of monkeys that had escaped from a private zoo. She wanted to start calling now but it was too late to be passing on distressing information. ‘How early is too early to start making calls? Seven am?’
‘Definitely too early. Give them time to have breakfast and coffee. You should too, before you try to explain anything.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ Jax flexed her hands, trying to ignore the urge to pick up the phone.
‘You look tired. Why don’t you go to bed?’
It wasn’t ten yet but it’d been a stressful, anxious, shitty couple of days and she should probably try. ‘I think I will.’ She kissed her aunt’s cheek, headed for the stairs and started down without turning on the lights – no point flicking on a dozen tread-mounted bulbs when the glow that came through the frosted glass in the front door was enough to see by. Except halfway down, headlights swept past and Brendan Walsh was at her shoulder.
We can’t hide, Jax. They’re everywhere. Fucking everywhere.
Leaping across the foyer, fumbling for the light switch, she hit the wall with a thud, swore under her breath.
‘Are you all right?’ Tilda’s voice floated down from above, rows of twinkling lights coming to life on the stairs.
‘Forgot where the light switch was,’ Jax called. ‘Can you show me again how to work the alarm?’
Under Tilda’s instructions, Jax armed and disarmed the house, checking the movement sensors in the living rooms and hallways.
‘Try to get some sleep,’ Tilda called as she flicked off the lights.
Jax padded quietly through the lower floor, aching with tiredness now, but checking locks, putting her phone and the mini laptop she carried in her bag on to charge, turning off Zoe’s nightlight, picking up clothes and tossing them into the laundry – jittery tension buzzing inside her again. The street outside seemed ominously close now, the shadows filled with Brendan’s voice.
I’m not going to get there. It’s coming. It’s coming soon.
You didn’t get there, Brendan, she said silently. Did that mean it was still coming?
There was no indication anyone was after him – the alert and capable Detective Senior Sergeant Aiden Hawke had told her. It was residual fear she was feeling, only to be expected, brain in shock and all that. It was in Brendan’s mind, it didn’t have to be in hers.
It didn’t mean she could sleep.
She went back to the living room, opened the first packing carton she came to. Kitchenware. Perfect – she had a wall of cupboards to fill and she needed something to keep her body from crawling out of its own skin. She filled shelves and thought about Kate and Scotty Walsh trying to sleep tonight. About Brendan and the message he’d wanted Jax to tell.
About Aiden Hawke making hard decisions, then reliving and redoing. His version of a what-if.
What if Jax had bolted when Brendan first opened the car door? What if she’d been able to escape at the cafe? What if she’d crashed the car? She leaned on the kitchen bench and thought about that.
What if she’d aimed the passenger side at a road barrier and braced herself? Could she have survived that? She had airbags. But what if she’d been injured, unable to get out and run? What if Brendan hadn’t survived? Maybe then she’d be asking different questions. Like, what would happen to Zoe if her mum was in a wheelchair, and how did it feel to kill another woman’s husband?
Yeah, and maybe some questions weren’t worth contemplating.
Jax woke to the shuffle-crunch of Zoe crawling over paper. She’d seen her mother’s bedtime reading plenty of times, knew it came from the document box, and carefully, almost reverently, scooped up the pages and moved them to the end of the bed. They hadn’t soothed Jax’s agitation last night, the words swimming in her eyes as her brain flicked back and forth between Nick and Brendan. Questions, details, two crime scenes.
‘Morning, Mummy,’ Zoe sang when she’d wiggled under the sheets.
‘Morning, Zoe.’
‘What do seagulls eat?’
‘I don’t know. Fish. Hot chips.’
‘Can we go to the beach today?’
Jax eyed the freckles that dotted her daughter’s cheeks. ‘We’ll see.’
They had cereal at the breakfast bar in their new kitchen, ignoring the appliances Jax hadn’t found a cupboard for, counting the ships in the queue off the coast, and calling ‘Bye!’ to Tilda as she left for a power walk.
The morning heat felt like leftovers from the day before, the air that came through the door sticky and stale before the sun had barely climbed above the horizon. Jax poured coffee, watched sunrays floating on the ocean and tried to forget the images from her dreams, feeling restless, tense, vaguely … what? Fearful. No, that didn’t describe it. Maybe she’d need to read a psychology text to find the right word for it.
What she needed was to stop thinking and do something.
Seven-thirty was too early to start making calls. ‘Okay.’ She picked up the empty cereal bowls. ‘Why don’t we slap on some suncream and head to the beach? Be there and back before it gets too hot. What do you think?’
Zoe ran for her floaties.
Tilda spotted them as she strode along the walkway above the beach wall, pulled off her shoes and joined them, getting to her knees and telling Zoe they could reach China if they started digging right there.
Jax left them to it, waded into a buffeting surf and plunged under a wave. The water was bracing and the spectacular view along the shore made her feel like she was swimming in a postcard. She told herself to enjoy it, to loosen up and let the salt water clear out the sludge and muck that was festering, but the splashing about felt contrived and impatience niggled and minutes later she was standing on the sand again, drying off.
‘Are you going to help, Mummy?’ Zoe called from the pit of a knee-deep hole.
Jax tightened the towel around her shoulders, took a quick look at the clock on the clubhouse wall. Had they only been there forty minutes? ‘Maybe.’
Tilda took a break from the
excavation, squinted up at her. ‘Zoe and I have a little way to go. Why don’t you head home, get your calls over and done with?’
Was it that obvious? She gazed along the length of beach, wanting to go, telling herself she should stay. She dropped to her haunches beside her aunt and lowered her voice. ‘You had Zoe for me yesterday afternoon. I didn’t move here so you’d do all the babysitting.’
‘I know you didn’t, Jax honey,’ Tilda matched her volume. ‘And you didn’t plan to get carjacked. Go and do what you need to do and then maybe you can stop walking around with your arms folded.’ She raised her voice again. ‘We’re having fun, aren’t we, Zoe?’
‘Yep.’ Zoe grinned, looking like she’d been buried and was digging her way out, not down. ‘How long will it take to get to China?’
‘About half an hour,’ Tilda said.
Zoe pulled a face. ‘That long? Can we have a swim after that?’
Jax rinsed off under the public shower and ran the steps up the hill, panting so hard when she reached the front door that she had to bend over and gulp at the air. Christ, she was out of condition. She hadn’t run since …
She let herself think about it as she sat to dig for keys in her beach bag, preferring this memory to the ones that kept flooding her mind.
Jax had been a runner at school, in the state team three years in a row. She didn’t make that last meet – it was two weeks after her parents died – and she didn’t run again until she met Nick in her second semester at Sydney Uni. He was training for the City2Surf, told her she shouldn’t bother because she’d never keep up with him. She knew it was reverse psychology but she hated being underestimated.
They’d run together a couple of times a week all the years before Zoe was born, then he’d kept at it and she’d found a gym with a crèche. Most weekends, though, they’d set off together somewhere nice, Zoe with them in a pram at first, then graduating to a little pushbike. Happy family days that had finished abruptly.
And Jax hadn’t pulled on joggers since Nick was killed in his.
She felt the questions starting up again, found her phone as she headed for the stairs, relieved to have a task to keep her mind away from them. Grabbing the notebook with her list of potential Kate Walshes, she was dialling before she’d ditched the bag and towel from her shoulder. The ‘hello’ on the other end froze the hasty words on her tongue.
The voice was female, not young enough to be Kate Walsh, but real and human, and instead of moving Jax past sad memories, it thrust her back to how it felt to be freshly widowed and taking calls from well-meaning strangers. Delivering a sad message while she was still puffing from a trip to the beach was just rude.
When Jax hung up, she took the phone and notebook to the table and waited for her heart to stop racing before she started again. She left messages on answering machines for the third and fifth names. Number nine rang out. The twelfth was disconnected. At sixteen, a cleaner answered and told Jax the ‘K’ was for Kiefer, as in Kiefer Sutherland, but he was a chiropractor, not an actor. Tilda and Zoe arrived home after call twenty-two, and Jax took a break to make coffee and giggle at Zoe as she squealed under the cold-water shower at the side of the house.
‘Not even a relative?’ Tilda asked.
‘A couple of cousins but not the right family.’
‘Maybe she’s not listed.’
‘Maybe.’
It was ‘No’ from twenty-three and twenty-four. She was doodling on the notepad when twenty-five answered and she rattled off her spiel.
The man’s pleasant tone was replaced with sarcasm. ‘You want to know if a Kate Walsh lives here.’
‘Yes. The wife of Brendan Walsh.’
‘This is the third time I’ve had you media people asking for Kate Walsh. You lot are bloody vultures. Isn’t it bad enough that it’s all over the telly without you upsetting her more? If I had her phone number, I wouldn’t bloody give it to you.’
Jax hung up and tossed the phone on the table, something hot and mortified tingling in her fingers. She wasn’t media and she’d tried not to be vulture-like when she was, but the guy’s outburst made her uncomfortable about her motivations – and for feeling better in the few hours she’d been working through the list than since Brendan Walsh had laid his hand on her passenger door.
‘I’ve made some lunch. Why don’t you take another break?’ Tilda called from the stairwell.
Jax rubbed her hands over her face as she stood. Tilda – dressed and blow-dried already – was in front of her when she’d finished. ‘Thanks but you don’t need to make another meal for us,’ Jax told her. ‘I’ve got enough for a couple of sandwiches. You’ll get sick of us.’
‘It’s already done, honey, and I’m enjoying the company. I’ll let you know when I’ve had enough of you.’
She probably would, but Jax didn’t want it to get to that. She and Zoe were here for a while, possibly a long while. The three of them had to work out how to live together.
Jax went up, though, wondering if the search for Kate Walsh was unfair – on Tilda and Zoe. If she needed something to do, she should focus on making a home for her daughter instead of searching for the wife of a man who’d almost killed her. She kept telling herself that as she went downstairs after lunch and ripped the tape off another box. But she heard Brendan’s voice, too.
I wanted to get there first but I don’t know if I can make it that far. It might have to be you. You might have to tell her.
Fuck it, there were only six more numbers. She grabbed the phone, dialled number twenty-six. The voice was male. He listened to her pitch and said nothing for five long seconds.
‘Who’s calling?’ he finally asked.
And Jax had found Kate Walsh.
20
Jax spoke quickly, success and a sudden urgency to say her piece making the words tumble out. ‘My name is Miranda Jack. Kate doesn’t know me but I’d like an opportunity to speak with her.’
Another pause. ‘You’re Miranda Jack?’
His tone made her hesitate, blood warming her face as she thought about what he must be piecing together: the woman on the motorway, the one holding the gun, the one who’d been with Brendan when he died. Jax wanted to explain it to Kate, not the man answering her phone, but she remembered Russell in the days after Nick’s accident, watching her distress, trying to decide what she needed to deal with. ‘Yes. I’d like to speak to her about Brendan. About … what happened.’
There was more silence, longer this time. ‘Hold on.’
She heard rattling as he shuffled the phone about, muffled voices, his and a woman’s – Jax hoped it wasn’t a duo making decisions for Kate.
‘Can you come to the house?’ he asked.
She’d been ready for a few kind words over the phone, hadn’t expected a face-to-face, and swallowed uncomfortably on Brendan’s description of his wife. Tough as nails sometimes. ‘Yes, of course.’
She wrote down the address, said she’d be there that afternoon, then walked to the window, her eyes roaming the uneven sprawl of houses down the hill. Kate Walsh lived in the same suburb. If Jax knew the lay of the streets, she could probably have picked the house from there.
If Brendan had told her where he wanted to go, she could have dropped him off on the way to Tilda’s.
It might have been nice if the cops had considered Jax’s near-fatal, high-speed, driver’s-worst-nightmare experience before towing her car to a compound thirty k’s down the motorway and telling her to go get it herself. If she’d had a choice about hitting high-speed traffic again, she would’ve passed it up – possibly for the next six years. But Tilda was taking Zoe to a choir meeting and they needed transport.
Tilda drove on the way out while Jax gave directions, gripping her seat and gasping whenever the brakes were touched. She was sweating and slightly nauseous when her aunt and daughter waved goodbye, glad she wasn’t going to be responsible for their safety on the return journey.
Fingerprint powder on her green car lo
oked like black mould growing from the edges of the doors. Inside, it was as though someone had held a handful of it in front of the dashboard and blown. It took fifteen minutes to wipe off enough to sit in the driver’s seat without getting it all over her pale blue trousers.
She’d wanted to use the drive back to compose some words for Kate Walsh, but she clung to the steering wheel like she might get shot if she didn’t stay in her lane, barely reaching the speed limit and tumbling out in front of the red-brick bungalow with nothing but echoes of Brendan’s urgent, rambling, irrational voice in her head.
The afternoon’s humidity wrapped around her like a wet blanket as she eyed the line of vehicles on both sides of the street. It reminded her of the stream of visitors after the news about Nick had spread, and she winced at the thought of a house full of anguished family and friends. Possibly family and friends who thought she’d had something to do with the way Brendan finished up under the wheels of a minibus. Would Kate want them to gather around and listen to what the woman from the motorway had to say for herself? Jax considered staying by the car a while longer, nutting out the best way to express herself, but it was too damn hot … and it was time to move on.
The man who answered the doorbell looked like he’d spent both his entire life and someone else’s outdoors. His skin was the texture of a leather handbag she’d once owned. If he’d smiled, his cheeks might have creased into concertina folds. He didn’t.
‘Miranda Jack?’
‘Yes, I’d …’
‘She’s through here,’ he said and walked off down a hallway.
There were sounds from elsewhere in the house – a clattering of dishes, voices: an adult and the higher pitch of a child – and Jax’s mouth went dry. But when she stepped into a lounge room behind the man, there wasn’t a crowd. Not even a small gathering. Just one woman who stood up from a sofa, and the sight of her made Jax’s feet stop and her breath catch.
