‘You didn’t have to pitch my case,’ he said. ‘Thanks, though.’
‘We both want the same thing, you know? I want the world to see what really happened to Eliza too.’
‘You knew her well?’ Jack asked. Lauren raised an eyebrow. ‘I know, I’ve already asked you this. But you might remember some small detail. It would help me, at least, to go over it again.’
‘We were kind of friends, I guess. Though maybe she thought I was just some kid that pestered her. I thought she was the coolest. When she was working at the Freemans’ I was only fifteen, remember, and I’d lived in country towns all my life, and here’s this confident, amazing, 25-year-old who’s travelling the world on her own like a goddamn boss.’ She placed a hand over her mouth and her shoulders lifted, stifling a chuckle. A good memory bubbling out of her. ‘She flogged a bottle off Andrew once and we drank it sitting out here, under the vines. That was a nice night. It’s how I like to remember her.’
Lauren tilted her head and soaked in the sun as if recharging. She looked back at him and smiled.
‘Come back tomorrow night,’ she said, ‘We’ll have the restaurant to ourselves. I used to fill in with the chefs so I can make you something.’
‘Yeah. Okay . . .’ Jack said, but he must have hesitated, because Lauren immediately caught him out.
‘Did my brother scare you?’ she said. ‘Fuck, he scared me too! You’re lucky. You can imagine if I ever brought a boyfriend home . . .’
Now they were both laughing again. A magpie took flight with the sudden noise, rippled through the air. Their laughter faded and there was no more to be said. Jack kept expecting Lauren to turn back to the house, but she stayed with him, thumbs poking out the front of her jean pockets, palms flat on her thighs. They crunched down the drive.
‘He killed her,’ she said. Kicked a rock.
They kept walking. The world flickered.
‘He’s guilty,’ she said. ‘He always will be. It doesn’t matter if he actually did anything or not. There’s been too much press. Too many podcasts. Too many shows. Don’t you see? Even the supporters, well, Alexis dying has changed their minds. Yours too, I can see it. In the public eye, he’s guilty. It’s just a different prison he’s living in now. A bigger room.’ They’d reached the end of the drive. The van was gone. ‘So sometimes it’s easier to just think he killed her. Because even if he didn’t, wherever we go, my brother will always be the guy that strangled that young woman. No. My family will always be the family that strangled that young woman.’ She sighed. ‘And now we’ve gone and killed another one.’
Jack didn’t have anything to say. Lauren’s life sucked away by her brother’s actions. The only way to move the spotlight was to get the real truth out there. She needed him. He turned to leave. She reached out and grabbed his arm. Hard. Farmer’s fingers clinched around his bony wrist. Her hand was sweaty and slicked his skin. She shot a look back at the farmstead.
‘Help us.’
Lauren turned back at the main road as if some invisible force field separated the Wade property from the town. It may well have.
Leaving that house had been like stepping back into the world. Curtis kept all the curtains closed. Jack wondered if Curtis had done that prior to his visit to intimidate him, but more likely it was to block out photographers and their drones. The main road of Birravale was clear, and the light so sharp that everything looked colourless. The Brokenback’s usually vibrant canopy was bleached a pale green.
The road was narrow so Jack walked in the dirt. Crumbling blocks of bitumen scooted off his toes, the road shrinking ever inwards. A sheep transport blew past him and he felt the world shake. The smell of piss and wool bathed him. Hot diesel lingered in his sinuses. The truck rattled on.
Jack liked walking. Out the front of the hospital, where they'd been fed, he hadn’t been allowed. The nurses had forced everyone to catch the bus home. They’d supervised them to the stop, watched them board, and ticked their names off a list. Packed full of calories, the message was clear: we don’t want you wasting them walking home. No one had the guts to get off at the first stop, in case the driver was a snitch. Someone would always cause a fuss though. I don’t have any change, they’d complain, animatedly patting their pockets. The nurses were ready for that – producing zip-lock bags with the exact fare in silver inside. Was Sydney’s public transport funding so bad, Jack used to joke, they had to prop it up with fares from bulimics? We’re light, another patient said once, saves fuel.
His phone rang. A blocked number. The man on the other end was talking before he could say hello:
‘I hear you’ve been hassling the Wades.’
Winter.
‘I wasn’t hassling. I was invited.’
‘No journalists are allowed on the property. Do I need to take you through Trespass 101 again?’
‘I’m not a journalist. I told you, they invited me.’
‘Curtis did?’ said Winter.
‘Lauren, actually. Why didn’t you tell me how Alexis was killed? She wasn’t strangled; she was beaten. Curtis told me.’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything. You’re not a detective. What else did he say?’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything either,’ Jack parroted.
Jack ran his hand over the steel railing, a minor barrier where the road bumped, crossing a small creek. The road had started to level out and Jack could see the whole town in a straight line, every building lining the main street, with their purpose labelled on their awnings in large block letters, as if they were all attending the same high-school reunion, sticky labels on breast pockets. Hi, my name is: NEWSAGENT. It looked like less of a town and more of a movie set. He supposed that was actually half right. Birravale wasn’t a real town: it was a service depot. Just enough drink and food and beds to recharge the wine guzzlers. A community reduced to its basic functions. Like Liam in his bed. He reached the end of the railing, rust roughened his fingers and he rubbed them on his jeans. He was sweating, and it had only been a short walk from the Wades’.
How had Winter known he’d even been there? The van. It wasn’t really a media van. The satellite on top must have been fake.
‘Why are you keeping tabs on Curtis if he’s not a suspect?’ he said.
‘Bad press. If the Wades are talking to you, you might be useful. Tell me something.’
It was clearer now. Winter might be a good detective – Jack had no idea – but he was also a media cop. The sort they bring in on the high-profile cases. His job was as much PR as it was solving the actual crime. That was modern policing, Jack supposed. Curtis was actually on the radar but Winter didn’t want to blow into Birravale with helicopters and handcuffs. Not until he had bulletproof evidence, anyway. And Curtis wasn’t letting anyone without a warrant on his property. Except for Jack. So they could help each other out.
‘Curtis said he didn’t do it,’ Jack said.
‘Tell me something new,’ Winter said.
‘He’s right about his motive. As much as I want to believe it, it’s not there. How much of a case do you have?’
‘Not enough. Help me clarify some things from your interview. This isn’t us working together . . .’ Jack imagined Winter leaning back in his chair, checking the office for prying ears, dignity shaken that he was asking Jack Quick for help. ‘Just so we’re clear.’
‘That low on suspects, are you?’ Jack couldn’t help rubbing it in a little.
‘The company line is that we are actively pursuing several promising leads.’
‘So. Fuck all.’
‘We are actively pursuing several promising leads.’ There was the sound of Winter flicking through a notebook. ‘Her boyfriend. Do you have any clue who he was?’
‘I don’t think it was technically a boyfriend. She was flippant.’
‘Is it you?’
‘Fuck’s sake.’
‘I have to ask,’ Winter said, one of his standard lines.
‘It’s not me.’
>
‘Is it Curtis?’
Jack paused. Winter, whether he knew it or not, was being obvious. Like with Eliza, a rape kit would have been used. Judging by the way Winter was flinging out darts at any target, Jack guessed that, like with Eliza, the kit had turned up nothing. That meant that she hadn’t slept with anyone in the week or so prior to her death, the longest period that DNA collection could be considered viable. Or, at the very least, she hadn’t slept with anyone they had a profile on. People who watch crime shows think it’s as easy as punching into a database, but most average citizens aren’t on it. Curtis was – his DNA collected during the first arrest. Jack had a sudden flash of Alexis pinned under Curtis, the whistle through his teeth, fat and panting.
‘I’d be surprised,’ he said.
‘I have’ – more rustling of pages – ‘that the boyfriend called her twice during your meeting. And sent her a text. Right?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t see her caller ID, but it seemed like the same guy rang her a few times.’
‘Hmmm,’ Winter muttered. ‘Time?’
Jack told him. A ute thrummed past.
‘Don’t see it,’ Winter said to himself. There was a clack clack clack down the line, the tapping of a pen against his teeth. Of course, Jack thought. Winter was looking at phone records.
‘Which phone?’ Jack said.
‘Hmmm,’ Winter said again. ‘Interesting.’
He hung up.
Jack held the phone in his hand, recovering. Which phone? The police hadn’t known about her second phone. And if her boyfriend was a new fling, it was likely that second phone was the one with his messages and phone calls. It was probably cheap, prepaid. Hard to trace. Was it in the house when he was there? He tried to remember. And why hadn’t he told the police?
He’d just forgotten. Surely. But maybe, subconsciously, he’d held it back on purpose. Because a part of him wanted to be the one to solve the damn thing. If I didn’t do it, it’s not about you anymore, Curtis had said. Maybe he was right. This whole investigation just an exercise in selfishness.
Jack’s thoughts were swirling. He was close to town now, walking on the footpath instead of the dirt. He needed someone to talk to. A good listener, someone who wouldn’t judge him. He was still holding his phone. He dialled his father.
‘Hey, Dad,’ he said.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Is Liam there?’ Awake, he meant. Of course he was there. He couldn’t physically be anywhere else. He’d meant to say awake.
‘He’s here.’ They’d almost become used to that accidental language, imagining him as a real person, just for a glimmer.
‘Can you put me on speaker?’
‘Jack,’ Peter said gently, ‘I don’t know if this is —’ He stopped himself short of saying healthy, as if the word itself might leap out of the phone and make his son sick. He sighed. ‘Okay. Let me grab the paper.’
There were a few moments of quiet, then a crinkling of paper, a series of thuds, and some crackling interference. Peter had walked up the stairs, gone into Liam’s room and sat in the armchair, crossword smoothed on his lap. His voice, when it came, was from further away. ‘You’re on.’
‘Hey, mate,’ Jack said. ‘How are you doing, Liam?’
There was no reply except the soft, intermittent beep of a machine, and the gentle scratch of Peter’s pencil.
‘Listen, that case we’ve been working on. Can I run some things past you?’
A quiet beeping.
‘I just don’t understand. If a boyfriend murdered her, it almost makes sense. It was a single blow to the back of the head, you know? That’s a murder of passion. Violence like that comes from fire, anger or impulse, right?’ Jack saw it in his mind, a hulking shadow in the cobblestone lane, weapon in hand. Alexis’s boyfriend panicking. Staggered by what he’d done. Needing to draw attention away from himself, to run. Realising, as he slipped Alexis’s second phone into his pocket, that the perfect cover was as clear as the impending dawn: imitating the most high-profile crime in a century.
No answer but the dull scratch of a pencil in the background.
‘No, I don’t know who she was sleeping with, mate. I don’t know her type.’ He paused, waiting for answers that weren’t coming. ‘You’re right. I really didn’t know her at all.’
Beep.
‘What about her fingers, then? People don’t carry around pliers just in case. They could have rummaged in her garage, I guess.’
Beep. Beep. Scratch. Scratch.
‘Good point. We were never able to match Eliza’s wounds to a weapon.’ Jack’s researchers had tested all kinds of weapons on replica silicon hands. None had matched Eliza’s fingers: mangled stumps like the chewed end of a cigar, a glint of white in the centre. ‘So what you’re saying is if Alexis’s wounds match Eliza’s,’ Jack finished Liam’s imagined sentence for him, ‘it could tie the murders together.’
Beep. Scratch.
‘I need to see the coroner’s report. You’re a genius, bro.’
Peter cleared his throat loudly. Jack’s time was up. There was some kind of stopwatch always running in this family.
‘Dad’s wrapping me up. I’ll see you soon.’ Then to Peter: ‘Thanks Dad.’
‘I know he can’t hear you, but I don’t like you telling him those things.’ Peter’s voice was slightly thick in the air. ‘He’s peaceful.’
‘You don’t have to sit in.’
‘Part of me hates it. And the other part of me . . . if I shut my eyes and listen’ – he breathed – ‘it’s just like you’re brothers again.’
They paused on that misuse of tense – Liam was still alive, they were still brothers – but Jack knew what his father meant. They murmured goodbye.
Right, Jack thought immediately, the coroner’s report. He only had one option there, damn it. He texted McCarthy.
FINGER WOUNDS. CORONER’S REPORT. HELP ME OUT?
Then quickly added a second green bubble below.
LAST FAVOUR, PROMISE.
He’d reached the Royal now. A blackboard out the front promised counter lunches. He knew he had to. Being here on his own, dark thoughts and dead women swirling through his head, was harmful enough. The longer he went without eating the harder it would be to keep it down later.
He stepped inside. Framed posters – ALCOHOL: AUSTRALIA’S MOST EXPENSIVE DRUG and GAMBLING: KNOW WHEN TO STOP – ringed the room uselessly. Immediately, the air changed. Dampened. As if the very atmosphere was laden on an atomic level with an extra ion or two of beer, latching itself between hydrogen and oxygen. A new molecule, brewed and bonded here: Shitfaced-Dioxide.
Jack took a seat at the bar. The bartender who’d told him to fuck off yesterday was behind the taps talking to the motel owner, Brett Dawson, who was ignoring a parmigiana. Two younger blokes in their mid-twenties were standing on either side of him, leaning on the bar. They were both handsome (Alexis’s type? Jack wondered), with blond hair darkened from sweat and dirt-browned hands curled around their schooners. A yellow vest was folded on the counter. Tradies. As well as running the motel, Brett ran some construction around town. They’d helped on Curtis’s new restaurant. Knocked down the old one for Whittaker, too, the previous owner, who, out of spite, had filled his cellar with concrete to deaden the land for the new owners. Jack had seen the invoice for the concrete fill. TV research is not all glamorous confrontations with potential murderers, sometimes it’s just sifting through receipts. Not a bad side gig – thirty-five grand for pouring concrete into a hole. One of Brett’s buddies snuck a chip off his plate. The barman looked across at Jack, and Jack gave a noncommittal wave and plucked a menu from the stack.
The menu had nothing he felt he could order. He snuck another glance in Brett’s direction; the chicken schnitzel looked enormous. He wanted it. Wanted to walk over there and tear it apart with his hands and cram it in his face. But he knew if he got that he’d eat it all. And then he’d feel it festering inside him for the rest of the day
. It would be all he could do to keep it down. Eating was always a tightrope walk inside his stomach; too much and he’d want to purge, too little and he fed the other side of his disease. Every meal was trying to flip a coin and land it on its edge. He frowned. The menu was all burgers and chips and schnitzels. He wanted something benign. He considered leaving, flipped the menu over. On the back there were the kids’ meals. Smaller portions. Spaghetti bolognese. Better.
He placed the menu upside down in front of him in what he hoped was a clear enough sign he’d finished reading it. While waiting, Jack noticed a TV hanging from the cornice across the room. Daytime TV was playing. Nothing interesting. But in a newsbreak Ted Piper popped up in his familiar blue two-piece, spouting soundbites. So Alexis still qualified as news. It took a few more moments for the barman to twig; he held a finger up to Brett, excusing himself, and waddled over.
‘Decided?’ He was gruff but not impolite. Perhaps he’d accepted that they’d failed to drive Jack away. Or perhaps, like the B & B owner who’d put Jack’s financial utility above her dislike of him, the publican had realised there were only four people in the bar and only one of them was currently eating. He needed every customer he could get. As long as Jack was spending, he’d earned himself a begrudging courtesy. Brett Dawson was the only one with a horse still high enough.
Or maybe the publican wanted to make Jack eat something he’d rubbed his balls against.
Jack introduced himself, extending his hand over the bar.
‘I know who you are. Alan Sanders.’ The publican wiped his hands on the front of his apron as if he was about to take Jack’s hand. He didn’t. Was Jack imagining Alan’s furtive glance to where Brett and company were? ‘Decided?’ he asked again.
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