by Jaye Ford
Jax had posed the same question to herself. Before Nick’s death, she’d assumed she would have known if something was up with him – they lived and worked together, their daily life was interwoven. But he was mown down forty minutes from home and she had no idea why he’d crossed the Harbour Bridge in late peak hour, driven to a residential neighbourhood, parked in a side street and went for a run in a suburb with no park, no track, not even a footpath. She’d thought plenty about the half-dialled number on his mobile, questioned whether the person he’d tried to call in his last moments was a woman. Someone he loved – someone he loved more than Jax – whose voice he wanted in his ear as he died.
If it was, did she want to know? If Nick was cheating or concealing something? If he was losing his mind? If he was a serial killer and leaving a trail of dead bodies?
If it explained why he was dead – yes, yes, yes and yes. She wanted the truth. She wanted it to be noble or just dumb luck, but even if it was ugly and humiliating, she wanted it. Because the truth was better than never really knowing.
But that was her choice. ‘I wouldn’t want to make that decision for Kate.’
Hugh smiled a little, edged his fingers forward, stroked the back of her hand with a knuckle. It seemed like reassurance that she was doing the right thing, but the intimacy of it suddenly made the proceedings feel less Q&A and more the kind of meeting she wasn’t ready for.
Tucking her fingers away, fumbling for her teapot, she told herself that men and women met this way sometimes, sharing empathy. She had a friend who’d married a man she met at a funeral. But shit, Jax wasn’t ready. Not even close. And she didn’t know how to play this game. What was the appropriate way to say, Thanks, but I need to finish asking my questions and about six months to evaluate my life?
She spoke quickly, wanting to cover her discomfort. ‘Brendan was trying to get to Kate and Scotty when he ran in front of that bus.’ Across the table, Hugh straightened, his smile dropping. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe you didn’t want to know that.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ His jaw tightened as he ran a hand across his stubble – it looked like both strain and fortification. Taking a moment to sip on the cement, she thought.
‘Can you write something, Mummy?’
Jax took the pen from Zoe, wrote Mummy, Daddy, Aunty Tilda, doubting there was any chance she could be interested in a man who thought being hard was a positive character trait.
When she’d handed the notebook back to Zoe, Hugh said, ‘So Brendan thought someone was after him because he hadn’t gone home for a while?’
Could it have happened like that? Could Brendan have got it into his head that Kate and Scotty weren’t safe because he hadn’t been home?
Across the table, Hugh read her silence as confirmation. ‘Jesus, did I do that? I told him I’d come after him if he didn’t do the right thing by Kate.’
‘Not unless you threatened him with guns and missiles.’
‘That’s what he thought?’
She nodded. ‘He wouldn’t let me pull over because he thought we’d be …’ she curled fingers in the air ‘… “picked off”.’
He watched her a moment, his eyelids tightening as it sank in. ‘Tough day for you.’
‘Yeah.’ She laughed a little at his gruff sympathy, taking some comfort that it came from someone who knew worse kinds of tough days. ‘By the end, I thought there really was someone after us.’
‘Us? He thought they were after you too?’
‘Only because we were in the same car. And that was only because Brendan got in mine and pointed the gun at me.’
‘How did you respond to that?’
Did he think she’d employed a tactical manoeuvre? ‘Well, I froze, then I did what I was told and tried to ignore the yelling and the gun in my face.’
‘Sounds like you handled yourself well.’
‘For a civilian?’
He cocked his head. ‘You ended up with the gun. You must have done something useful.’
It hadn’t felt like that. ‘I talked to him. It seemed to calm him down.’
‘Did he talk back?’
‘Eventually. Most of what he said didn’t make sense. It was just disconnected thoughts – crazy, emotional stuff.’ She stopped, assuming Hugh wouldn’t want to hear about the ramblings of an ex-soldier who hadn’t been ‘hard’ enough. But he watched her as though waiting for the rest. ‘He said he’d been lied to,’ she went on. ‘He thought he had something breeding in his head, he freaked out when he saw my phone. Told me the people who were after him were trained and wouldn’t stop, that they had guns and knives and missiles.’
As she talked, Hugh’s face morphed back to the flat sternness he’d arrived with, making Jax wonder if it was his default expression. Perhaps he was naturally walled off and had to dig for compassion. Or had he trained himself to keep a mask over his emotions, choosing the moments he was prepared to reveal what was underneath? What she wanted now, though, was his reaction to her description of what had happened in the car.
What she got made her wonder about her own hold on reality.
36
When her story was done, Hugh turned his face away from her until all she could see was the firm set to his mouth and the beat at the hinge of his jaw as his teeth clenched and unclenched.
He knew something, she thought. Now he had the details, he knew. Maybe he knew all of it. She held her breath, hope making her spine straighter, her pulse quicken, while she waited for him to come back with a resolute, dutiful explanation.
But he didn’t. He just started with a slow swing of his head, left to right and back again. ‘Poor bastard,’ he finally pushed out. ‘What a way to leave the world.’
Jax’s brows slid upwards, inwards. Surprise, confusion. The silence hadn’t been speechless comprehension? He’d been sucking on concrete?
It was good news, she tried to tell herself. He hadn’t conceded to the idea that Brendan’s claims might be based in truth. She should be pleased. Massively relieved, even. But what she felt was disappointment. In Brendan, in herself. This new version of him – and that she’d been so wrong about Hugh’s reaction.
Did she want it to be real?
Or did she just want more questions to keep her obsession afloat?
‘Mummy!’
Jax jumped, realised Zoe was beside her, a finger tapping her shoulder. ‘Sorry, baby. What is it?’
‘When are we going home?’
‘Soon. Really soon.’
Zoe rattled her legs about, pulled her saddest face. ‘Oh, Mu-um, that’s what you said before.’
Yes, she had. And Zoe was a picture of boredom and fed-up-ness – a lethal combination. Jax glanced at Hugh. There was more she wanted to ask: what state was Brendan in when he’d last seen him, who were the civilians from the gym, what had happened in Afghanistan? But Zoe needed her attention and Tilda would be home soon, needing an explanation about the break-in. ‘Okay, Zoe, changed my mind. Let’s go.’
As Zoe packed up her dolls, Hugh stood, cupped a hand to Jax’s elbow and drew her around to face him. ‘I don’t know what you wanted to get out of this, Miranda, but I hope I’ve helped.’ It was his soft expression.
‘Thanks, you have, I think.’ Maybe it would feel that way when she’d had a chance to mull it over. She picked up her notebook from the table, held it a moment before pushing it into her bag. ‘It’s just … there are things that don’t make sense.’
‘What things?’
‘My house was broken into this morning while I was at Kate’s house. And I was harassed by a couple of blokes last night.’
‘You should’ve told me.’
‘Would it have made a difference?’
‘No, but you must be shaken up. Was much taken?’ His hand slid upwards along her bare skin, curled gently around her upper arm.
It was probably meant to be comfort and perhaps she should be grateful, but she wanted to shake her arm free and take a deep breath of personal space. In the end,
she didn’t do anything. ‘A few electricals,’ she told him.
‘Did you call the police?’
She nodded. ‘Fingerprinting has been and gone.’
His hand made a brief, consoling stroke of her arm before being removed. ‘Kate said you’ve just moved in. Classic time to get robbed.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’ She took a step back, tried to focus on what she wanted to know. ‘There was a lot of truth mixed in with Brendan’s rambling. He was so adamant … and I’m having trouble believing that it wasn’t all real.’
‘Ready,’ Zoe said, doll bag strapped across her chest.
Hugh signalled for them to go ahead of him, making no attempt to respond to Jax’s statement. Heat rushed up at them from the footpath as they stepped from the air-conditioning. As Jax lifted a hand to her forehead to block the glare, Hugh put his sizeable body between her and the sun. ‘Everything Brendan said was true.’
His words made Jax pull Zoe a little closer.
‘In some shape or form,’ he clarified. ‘He was chased by trained people with guns and knives and missiles. In Afghanistan. He was lied to – by the military, by our allies. Everyone gets lied to. I lied to him. I told him I’d come after him if he didn’t play nice with his wife. I don’t know what was in his head. Not spiders, obviously, but there’s probably an explanation. Maybe he had a headache.’
It was what Aiden had said.
‘You all right now?’ Hugh asked it as though she’d come to him for reassurance instead of information.
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘You’ve got my number. Call if you want to talk again. Or if someone else tries to break into your house. I can be a big, scary body if you need one.’
She smiled a little. ‘I imagine you can.’
‘Where’s your car?’
‘We came in a cab.’
‘Can I give you a lift somewhere?’
‘The police kept my car for fingerprinting last night and I was planning to pick it up now. Thanks, but it’s out of your way.’
He checked his watch. ‘Scotty is next door for a while longer and I’m sure Kate would appreciate the downtime.’
Jax glanced along the street, not sure what accepting a lift in the middle of the day with a child in tow meant in terms of getting-to-know-you these days. But it was a small strip of shops – no cab rank, no cab in sight, and Zoe was tired. ‘Okay, thank you.’
Jax gave him an address and directions as they walked around the corner. His car was a big, dark four-wheel drive, maybe as close to an army transport as he could get. She had to lift Zoe into the back seat, haul herself into the front.
‘Did the police get any useful prints from your car?’ Hugh asked as he pulled away from the kerb.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard yet,’ Jax said.
‘What about the break-in? Do they think it had something to do with Brendan?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’
She squinted out the window. Her head hurt from thinking about it. ‘I want to know what happened to Brendan. If it’s got something to do with that, I guess I’ll find out.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
A cynical laugh heaved its way from her throat. ‘Because I get stuck on things like that. Because sometimes the only thing I can do is ask questions. Because I can’t stand a mystery. Because I’m a civilian and it’s all I’m trained for. You want me to go on?’
‘You’re a journalist, you’re trained to write newspaper articles.’
She turned to face him, not sure from his tone if he was encouraging or correcting her. Or telling her to grow balls.
‘Is that what you’re planning?’ he asked.
She’d told Russell she was writing a story. It’d been a lie but writing had saved her sanity once before – maybe her subconscious was telling her something. ‘Maybe. My life at this point is largely unplanned. I’ll decide when I figure Brendan out.’
Hugh came to a stop at an intersection, sat a moment. More than a moment. Five, ten seconds. Jax leaned forward, checked the cross street. Nothing coming. Had he forgotten her instructions?
‘Straight through then a right,’ she said.
A beat passed. His head swung towards her, eyes obscured by sunglasses, the rest of his face still and unreadable.
What? she wanted to ask. But something about him – the movement, the posture, the watching – reminded her of Brendan. Of the suspended, unpredictable moments that had made her skin bead with sweat as she waited for his next move. She clenched her teeth, breath frozen in her chest, waiting for Brendan to start yelling.
‘Mummy, I need a pee.’ Zoe’s voice was like glass breaking in Jax’s head.
She wanted to turn to her. Fuck, she wanted to leap into the back seat and shield her with her body. But she couldn’t move, just held on to her seatbelt with a locked fist. Hugh wasn’t Brendan, she told herself. This wasn’t the motorway. It wasn’t the precursor to another bloody nightmare.
Across the car, Hugh looked back then front. Just like Brendan. ‘We better get going then. Straight ahead then right.’
Jax’s mouth was still dry by the time they made the turn. Her heart still hammering when Hugh let them off at the police compound. She thanked him, waved goodbye, thought, What the fuck is wrong with me? Maybe she was the one with the mental health issues. She’d flipped out because he’d looked at her sideways. She’d wanted Hugh to tell her Brendan wasn’t crazy, that there was someone after him. She was holding on to her questions as though they were keeping her breathing.
Driving home through a blur of tears, Jax listened to Zoe’s prattle with clenched teeth, trying to push down the tide of emotion that was filling her chest. She’d thought Brendan was a nice guy under pressure and now it seemed he was a cheating, nasty, crazy arsehole. How wrong could she be?
Cresting the hill, seeing the stunning coastline stretched out in front of her, she wanted to pull into the car park, soak up the heat and the view and the energy of the ocean; pry loose Brendan Walsh’s hold on her. But two men had found her at the beach yesterday. She had Zoe with her today. She couldn’t stop until she’d locked the car in the garage.
She couldn’t stop. That was the problem.
‘Are you crying, Mummy?’
Jax knuckled away a tear. ‘Just a bit, baby.’
‘Are you sad again?’
‘No, I’m not sad.’ She forced a smile through trembling lips – probably not as reassuring as she’d intended. ‘I’m just … worked up.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’
‘Because why?’
‘Not now, Zoe. Please.’
Tilda was at home when they came in from the garage, standing at the top of the stairs with a glass in hand and an anxious frown between her brows. ‘There you are. I was starting to worry where you’d got to.’
‘Tilda, I’m so sorry about the break-in,’ Jax called up.
Her aunt waved a hand, part dismissive, part come-on-up. ‘No, it’s my fault. I didn’t set the alarm this morning. I often don’t bother but I’ll have to be more conscientious now that you two are here. You’d think after the last few days I would’ve …’ she cut the thought off as Zoe hit the top of the stairs, gave her niece’s ponytail a quick tug as she scooted past. ‘Anyway, I’m cross I didn’t remember and you’ve lost your things.’
‘You’ve lost some too,’ Jax said, kissing Tilda’s cheek. ‘And I don’t think they broke in because you forgot to arm it, although I think we should make an effort to remember now. What are you drinking?’
‘Gin and tonic. Just so long as you’re both all right.’
‘Scared shitless for about fifteen minutes. Can I have one?’
‘Of course. Long or short?’
Long might put her in a coma. ‘Short, thanks.’ She followed Tilda to the kitchen, leaned wearily on the counter as her aunt poured. How much did Tilda need to know about the
break-in? That it might be about Brendan Walsh – both the robbery and the chase?
‘Olives?’ Tilda asked as she slid the drink across the counter.
‘Mmm, please.’ No, Jax couldn’t bear to go through it again – not after she’d promised her aunt to let it go. Not so she could be told again to leave it alone. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’ Tilda perched on the stool beside her and fluffed at her chic white hair as though the conversation might be taped for television.
‘I had coffee with Brendan Walsh’s friend Hugh Talbotson this afternoon.’
Tilda blinked, didn’t comment.
‘When we were talking, he made a point, left his hand on the table, then brushed the back of mine, like this.’ She made the same slow, gentle stroke on her aunt’s hand. ‘He’s this big, gruff, tough guy. He’s done four tours of Afghanistan and he didn’t really want to meet with me. Then that. It seemed weirdly intimate. It threw me. I didn’t know what to make of it.’
‘It’s flattering, Jax.’
‘So you think it was … that?’
‘What do you think?’
Jax pushed out a gust of breath. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think about anything.’
‘Are you attracted to him?’
Jax gulped at her gin and tonic. Christ, she was talking to her seniors-card-holding aunt about men again. ‘I don’t know. A bit, maybe. In an he’s-attracted-to-me-and-I-remember-that’s-quite-nice kind of way.’
Tilda patted Jax’s leg. ‘Well, that’s a start.’
‘I’m not ready for a start. I don’t want … I’m worried about –’
‘The sex.’
‘What? No.’
‘It’s only natural. The worrying and the sex.’
A chuckle bubbled in Jax’s throat.
Tilda twisted a finger around the end of the single long chain that hung from her neck and pulled a face that was halfway between you-may-laugh and let-me-tell-you. ‘Eventually you stop worrying or the sex is good enough to make you forget.’
