by Debra Oswald
Within a twenty-four-hour period, Damien discovered Kendra’s phone number had been changed, all her social media accounts deactivated and the couple had suddenly moved to a new apartment at an unknown address. In desperation, Damien went to the police and expressed his fears for her safety. Officers spoke to Kendra but she declined to make a complaint.
Paula sat in her consulting room after her last appointment of the day, closed her eyes and imagined the next patient to walk in the door was Kendra Bartlett, presenting with three broken fingers or hot liquid burns to her thighs or a deep knife laceration to the cushion of flesh below her thumb.
Paula knew from court reports that Kendra had gone to medical centres with each of those injuries. She had always offered an explanation, joking about her own clumsiness.
‘Oh, my hand slipped when I was lifting a kettle of boiling water.’
‘I tripped and I guess I landed with my fingers scrunched up in a stupid way.’
‘I was cutting up sweet potato and the knife slipped.’
The GPs who’d treated Kendra’s injuries were all questioned in court. Each of the three doctors worked in a different practice. None of the doctors had seen this woman before and none of them would see her again. All three suspected abuse, questioned her, tried to arrange a follow-up consultation, and each felt they could do little in that moment to stop her from disappearing out the door and sinking back into whatever dark world she was living in.
Paula was struck by how convinced Anita sounded, almost evangelical, about the idea that following the Santino trial would be a healing thing, offering the chance for some sense of justice, even if it was only vicarious justice, given the man who killed Stacey would never stand trial. If it helped Anita to talk obsessively about Kendra’s case, then Paula was prepared to listen.
Paula’s thinking about Kendra kept spilling over into thinking about Stacey. Stacey with her face bashed into a swollen, pulpy mess, scrambling to the car to flee the Maryvale property. Stacey kneeling on the floor of Paula’s lounge room as she watched her children being shot in the head.
The rage towards Matt would build up like a painful pressure under Paula’s skin. Sometimes she would deliberately, methodically, summon up the memory of him blowing his head off in her house. She hoped that image would offer swift release of the pressure inside her, like cutting into a cyst to expel the pus. But by the time Matt shot himself, Stacey and the kids were already dead. There was no release in picturing him dead after he’d killed them. That was too late.
Only one fantasy was worth anything: if she rewrote the narrative of that evening so she arrived home earlier. Poppy would be in the shower, Cameron playing Minecraft on his iPad, Stacey unpacking their schoolbags, rinsing out lunchboxes. Paula would see Matt with the rifle before he had a chance to hurt anyone. She would come up behind him silently, with the granite bird in her hand. She would smash the sharpest edge of the bird into the softest part of his temple. She might manage to do crucial damage to his temporal artery but it didn’t really matter. There would be no need to kill him. She didn’t care if he lived or died. She would only need to hit his skull hard enough so he dropped the rifle and went down. The police could have him after that.
Paula realised her hand was in spasm, her body unconsciously rehearsing the action of picking up the chunk of granite. This was disordered thinking, a post-trauma reaction. She had adequate insight into what was happening to her, but insight didn’t necessarily solve the problem.
She needed to get out of this room, away from the online news reports, and find some way to decompress. Better to avoid going back to her own house in this agitated state. Better to avoid contact with Anita right now, with the risk more talk about Kendra could increase the pressure. She must find some other way to anchor herself.
One thought came to mind. She decided to follow it and not let herself interrogate the thought too much.
Paula swivelled her office chair back around to the computer, clicked on the patient records and found a street address for Rochelle Ferguson. She waved goodbye to Jemma on her way past the front desk and headed out to her car.
Turning into Rochelle’s street, Paula slowed down, checking the house numbers. She wasn’t sure how to go about this without behaving like a stalker. Well, in truth, she was a kind of stalker. Maybe she should pretend she was lost or interested in buying real estate in the area. She berated herself for not having prepared a cover story.
She pulled her car over to the gutter, across the road and one house down from the Ferguson place. The house had been subjected to an ugly renovation in the seventies, with an outer skin of red brick, aluminium windows and garish blue roof tiles, but the hard edges were softened by foliage from lovely big trees and banks of overgrown shrubs. Paula had no idea if Rochelle would be home or even if she still lived at this address.
By now it was almost five o’clock, late June, with the sun already sinking, which meant Paula’s silver-grey car might hopefully fade into the dusk light. When a man walking his dog down the footpath glanced at her sitting there, she snatched up her phone and feigned sending a text. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion.
She should leave right now. Giving in to this impulse was ludicrous. If Rochelle walked down the footpath and saw her doctor sitting in a parked car outside her house, the poor woman would freak out. Paula should definitely go.
As she put on her indicator to do a U-turn, a Mazda approached from the other direction and pulled into the Fergusons’ driveway. Rochelle emerged from the driver’s seat, wearing a pale blue pantsuit with the logo of the beautician business embroidered on the chest pocket. She went around to open the boot of the car and started to unload bags of shopping.
The front door of the house swung open and Brody galloped out onto the porch and down the steps. An older woman—presumably Rochelle’s mother—stayed back, leaning against the doorframe, waving hello.
Paula sat very still in the car. She held her phone in front of her so if anyone happened to glance over, they would think she was checking something on the screen rather than gazing at the woman and child. Spying on them, even if it was, arguably, a benign form of spying.
Brody, wearing a red puffer jacket over his school uniform, bounded down the driveway and threw his arms around his mother’s hips. Rochelle bent over to land a volley of staccato kisses all over his head. Brody laughed, shook his head as if he were ticklish, but then submitted his face for more kisses.
From across the street, Paula couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear Brody was chattering to his mother, telling her some tale of his school day that required melodramatic hand gestures. Rochelle listened, gasping with appropriate amazement at his story.
The grandmother stepped out onto the porch, offering to help bring in the groceries. Rochelle waved her off, smiling—Brody would help with the shopping.
Mother and son joked around about what goodies might be inside the bags. Then Rochelle did a little pantomime about one of the bags being too heavy to lift, so they would have to carry it together, one handle apiece. Brody nodded, very earnest about the task, and helped her hoist the bag up onto the porch. And meanwhile, Paula sat in her car like a crazy person, watching a woman and a child carry in groceries.
When they eventually went inside the house, front curtains were drawn and interior lights switched on, Paula drove away.
She felt anchored again, as she’d hoped she might. But it struck her that she didn’t only feel soothed, she was also revived, as if she had drawn power from the sight of Rochelle and Brody alive, safe, not afraid.
TWELVE
ON HIS THIRD AND FINAL DAY IN THE WITNESS BOX, DAMIEN Ross looked exhausted, too drained to continue. The pale skin around his eyes was raw and puffy from crying or sleeplessness, probably both.
Anita had the urge to run over and shake his hand—no, fuck it, she wanted to fold that young man in her arms, do whatever she could to transfer the energy he would need to hold strong. She want
ed to hand him caffeinated beverages and muesli bars and herbal remedies, shower him with praise and reassurance and gratitude for the way he was standing up for Kendra.
When Irene Pileris stood up at the bar table to ask Damien Ross the first question of the day, she paused for a moment and smiled at him. She was silently letting him know that he was doing a good job, this was nearly over, and there was just one more part of Kendra’s story he was required to tell. Damien took a breath and Anita saw him soak in Pileris’s smile as the fuel he needed to keep going.
First, Irene Pileris questioned him about his efforts to find Kendra, his appeals to anyone who might’ve known where she was, even following John Santino as he left the bar one night, hoping Santino might lead him to wherever the couple was living. All these attempts failed.
‘So you had no contact with Kendra for three months, is that correct?’ asked Pileris.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Then on the thirtieth of September that year, there was a missed call on your phone.’
‘Yes, from a number I didn’t recognise. That’s why I didn’t call back,’ he explained. ‘After that, I had to go into a rehearsal session so I put my phone on silent. Four hours later, I turned my phone back on. There was a text from that same number.’
‘Can you read that text for us, Mr Ross?’ asked Pileris. ‘Do you need a copy?’ She reached for a piece of paper to hand to him.
‘Thank you, no. I remember it word for word.’
Pileris gestured to indicate he should go ahead.
‘The text said, Hallo, my Norwegian bror. Miss you. Sorry for disappearing. Got kinda crazy here with J. But I’ll be free soon and we’ll see each other again. I love you, my beautiful friend. KB.’
‘Did you respond to the text?’
‘I tried ringing the number but it was switched off. So I messaged back saying I loved her and I’d see her soon.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. By the time I saw her text, Kendra was already dead.’
As Irene Pileris concluded her questioning and sat down, Damien Ross took a wad of tissues out of his pocket and pressed them against his eyes. Anita noticed two female jurors were reaching into their handbags for tissues to mop at tears.
At first, in his cross-examination of Damien Ross, Woodburn came on smarmy.
‘I’m impressed by the way you’ve made the witness stand your stage, Mr Ross! I love all the voices you do. You strike me as a good actor. Would you say you’re a good actor?’
Damien frowned, cautious, not falling for the smarm, and answered in a flat tone. ‘Not for me to say. I hope I’m a good actor.’
‘And good actors are skilled at playing a character, are they not? Skilled at making a fictional story sound convincing?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘So in a way, Mr Ross, your acting training has made you a trained liar. How can the jury be sure this isn’t a convincing performance of a sequence of lies?’
Damien inhaled sharply, furious, and Anita silently urged him to keep his cool. He did keep his cool. ‘I’m not telling lies. Why would I do that?’
‘Well, is it possible you’re lying to the court because you loved your friend Kendra and you don’t want the world to think she was mentally ill enough to kill herself? Are you lying to us to protect her reputation?’
‘No.’
‘Or perhaps you’re lying to yourself because you can’t bear to believe Kendra rejected you as a friend? You’d rather believe some fictional version in which my client forced her to end the friendship, is that so?’
‘No,’ Damien responded.
He was distressed, no question. But then Anita watched this remarkable young man transform his distress into power, right in front of her in that courtroom. The more Woodburn pushed him, the more firmly Damien planted himself on his feet.
‘I was upset when Kendra cut contact. I missed her very much. But my main emotion was fear that she was in trouble.’
‘I see.’ Woodburn nodded with fake thoughtfulness. ‘You were afraid because you knew Kendra was struggling with anorexia, had a dysfunctional relationship with her mother, and worried she would never achieve success in her acting career? Afraid because you knew Kendra Bartlett had fragile mental health?’
Damien Ross was shaking visibly, squeezing away tears with brisk eye scrunches. His whole body was blazing with rage but his voice came out steady and strong.
‘I’m not pretending my friend didn’t have a few problems—like most people do. But Kendra’s biggest problem was John Santino. Her problem was being trapped in a relationship with a controlling, violent monster. Do you reckon any woman with a few problems deserves to be chucked off an overpass? Kendra was a beautiful person. She didn’t deserve any of the shit he put her through. Not the thousand sneaky humiliations. Not the constant surveillance. Not the bashing. Not killing her. None of it.’
Anita’s heart was thumping in a glorious rhythm. As soon as there was a break, she found a quiet corner of the corridor to leave Paula a voice message.
‘Hi. It’s me. Just now, in court, Kendra’s friend Damien—fucking hell, Paula, he was fierce for her. He was magnificent. I wish you could’ve seen it. Anyway, talk soon.’
Once Damien Ross stepped down as a witness, Irene Pileris brought the Crown narrative around to Kendra’s final day.
There was testimony from a tradesman who’d gone to the Santino apartment that last morning. A carpenter who did small home repair jobs, he was hired to replace the splintered wooden jamb of the bathroom door. It was the kind of damage you would expect from a locked door having been kicked open. (The defence’s version was that Santino had broken into the bathroom to stop Kendra from slashing her wrists.)
While the tradesman was working in the apartment, he heard Santino yelling at Kendra in the bedroom. When she came out of the room, she was wearing heavy make-up but the swelling and rawness on the side of her face were still visible through the thick layer of foundation. She was shaking and unsteady on her feet.
The tradesman turned to address the jury directly. ‘That woman was scared.’
He then described going to the kitchen, on the pretext of fetching a glass of water, so he could ask Kendra if she was okay. She whispered to him, ‘I’m leaving. Don’t worry. I’m outta here.’
Very soon after that, Santino hustled the tradesman out the door.
In cross-examination, Woodburn made a performance of being confused by the tradie’s testimony.
‘So—excuse me if I’ve misunderstood—if you thought Kendra Bartlett was in danger, why didn’t you do anything to help her?’
‘I should’ve punched him in the face,’ the witness snapped back, flicking his head to where John Santino was sitting. ‘Should’ve punched his lights out and got her out of there.’
‘Oh dear,’ Woodburn responded with fake dismay. ‘There’s no need to punch anyone. We have systems in place in this country to protect people. If you were so worried, why didn’t you ring the police?’
‘I should’ve,’ answered the tradie, his voice low, dragged down by lead weights. ‘I think about it every day. I should’ve.’
Again, Anita saw that Woodburn had miscalculated. By pushing this witness, all he’d succeeded in doing was provoking a decent man to express what many people in that courtroom were feeling.
After the lunch adjournment, it was Rohan’s turn on the stand. As one of the detectives on the case, his task was to present the evidence that had been gathered about Kendra’s last hours.
Bank records showed she had withdrawn all the remaining cash in her account at an ATM near Santino’s apartment. She put the cash and her passport in a travel pouch concealed under her clothing, suggesting she was escaping Santino rather than leaving the apartment with a plan to kill herself.
Her Opal card records indicated she caught a train from Edgecliff station and then changed trains at Central to travel to Kingsgrove.
In CCTV footage from Kingsgrove sta
tion, Kendra could be seen alighting from the train at speed, running along the platform, looking behind her with a fearful expression. The accused, John Santino, could be clearly seen running after her. He later explained to police that he used an app installed on Kendra’s phone to locate and follow her.
Kendra ran from the station in the direction of the M5 Motorway. She was next seen running towards a pedestrian overpass that was closed for maintenance, creating an effective dead end for a person fleeing on foot. Because the overpass was under repair, the usual high protective mesh was not in place.
A passer-by told police she saw a woman frantically climbing around temporary barricades to go onto the overpass, with a man running after her. The two people had a loud argument on the bridge. The passer-by was concerned enough to ring 000, then hurried towards the overpass. The pair was seen to struggle, then the woman was hoisted up by the man and thrown over the low railing onto the roadway. A truck hit her within one or two seconds of her landing on the road surface.
In cross, Woodburn queried Rohan on a few matters.
‘If Kendra Bartlett was planning to leave my client, why didn’t she take any luggage, any clothing with her?’
‘I don’t know. But I could guess, based on common sense, Mr Woodburn. If she was afraid John Santino would prevent her from leaving or she was afraid he would hurt her, she could have tried to hide her intentions from the accused.’
‘The CCTV footage, Detective Mehta—you assume this shows a woman running in fear from a man chasing her to do her harm. Is it possible that it shows a distressed woman intending to harm herself, being pursued by a man who loves her and wants to protect her from committing suicide?’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ conceded Rohan. ‘But I think that’s very unlikely given other evidence and the expressions on the faces, which you can see quite clearly in the footage.’
Rohan was thrillingly good on the stand: well prepared, polite but resolute in the face of Woodburn’s battery of questions. In his quiet way, Rohan was going in to battle for Kendra Bartlett. This was what he’d spoken about to Anita that evening in the pub, the first time they’d had a proper conversation. He’d talked about the drive to obtain justice for people after a terrible thing has happened. It couldn’t change the terrible thing but it was still of value. It was important. Watching him on the witness stand, Anita realised she was almost certainly in love with this man.