by Debra Oswald
‘Mr Lester, I would hate it. I’d want to kidnap her and try to talk sense into her.’
Anita was tempted to blurt out everything she knew about John Santino, but she couldn’t. Not because of the journalistic ethics, breaking court rules and all that, but because it would only cause these parents more pain, futile pain, given there was no clear way for them to rescue their daughter from danger.
But she did say, ‘Mr and Mrs Lester, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Hopefully this man will go to jail and you’ll have a chance to reconnect with Brooke. And even if he’s acquitted, the baby might be—well, let’s hope the baby helps you all to reconcile. What I would suggest you do, as soon as the trial is over—talk to the police about John Santino. Talk to this man …’ Anita tore out a page from her notebook and wrote down Detective Rohan Mehta, then his mobile number.
Rob Lester took the scrap of paper and nodded his thanks.
Trish squeezed her husband’s hand. ‘We’ll be at the court when the verdict comes in—whatever happens. Even if Brooke won’t talk to us, she’ll see us. She’ll know we love her. She’ll know we’re there if she needs us.’
Anita rang Paula that night and described her meeting with the Lesters. It felt important for Paula to know that if Santino was sent to jail, Brooke wouldn’t have to rely on the Santino family. She had her own doggedly loving family to support her and the baby. Paula agreed it was a reason to be hopeful.
Twenty-four hours later, Anita got the heads-up that a verdict was imminent. Walking into Court 3, she saw Trish and Rob Lester sitting in the corner and she nodded to them in greeting. Damien Ross was there, in his usual spot near the door, and Brooke was back in the courtroom, wedged between Marina and one of the Santino cousins.
The jury filed back in. The instant Anita saw two of the female jurors crying and several of the others looking at their shoes, sheepish and awkward, she guessed the result.
The foreman was a man in his fifties, square-bodied and square-headed. The muscles under the skin of his jawline were tensing in a combative rhythm, ready for an argument.
When the foreman pronounced the words, ‘Not guilty’, Anita heard an agonised wheezing sound behind her. Without needing to turn and look, she knew it was Damien Ross.
Murmured conversation bubbled through the courtroom, but cutting loudly across all of it was Marina’s braying voice repeating, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’
John Santino was crying, blowing kisses to his jubilant family. His emotional display was punctuated a couple of times by a strange vocalisation—a grunting ‘ha’ of satisfaction. Exactly like the sound the eyewitness had recalled when Kendra Bartlett fell from the overpass.
Hugh Warby appeared to be disappointed, ashamed, but unsurprised. Gilbert Woodburn looked smug, but rather tired. Even though he shook hands with John Santino, he broke contact with his client as soon as he politely could and busied himself with collecting up his folders. Anita liked to imagine Woodburn felt a tiny bit regretful, maybe a tiny bit grubby, for using his powers to release this dangerous creature back into the world. But probably not. And anyway, that was the system they worked in and the barrister had just been doing his job.
Anita stayed in her seat to watch Santino stride out of Court 3, with Marina on one arm and Brooke hooked in close on the other side. Brooke maintained a fixed smile, almost robotic, as if she was somehow mentally distant from this moment. It was impossible to read her expression with any certainty.
As the trio walked close to where Brooke’s parents were sitting, Anita couldn’t quite hear but she could see Trish Lester bleating, ‘Brooke. Sweetheart, talk to us. Please. Brooke.’
Santino swept the pregnant young woman away like a prize he’d won, and that was when Brooke’s mother dissolved into shuddering tears, slumping forward as if all her vertebrae had come apart. Rob Lester had to hold her upright on the bench.
Damien Ross sat near the exit and kept his eyes pinned on Santino, holding the man to account with the fierceness of his gaze. Santino turned his head and, for a brief moment, he smirked at Damien. He smirked.
Outside, with all the commotion of courthouse steps interviews and jostling camera crews, Anita was busy doing her job, covering this as the big story it surely was, and she lost sight of the Lesters and Damien. But once John Santino and his entourage had driven off in hire cars, the crowd dispersed quickly, leaving only the usual population of the street—a few legal bods and office workers going about their business.
Anita hung around Phillip Street, trying to get hold of Rohan. He would’ve heard the result but she wanted to talk to him anyway. As she walked around the side of the courthouse building, leaving another voice message, she noticed Damien Ross slouched against the sandstone wall, weeping helplessly, not caring that passers-by were gawping at him.
Anita decided not to waste time with introductions—he would’ve recognised her as part of the journalistic pack.
‘I’m so sorry about Kendra.’
He nodded, polite, but not interested in hearing platitudes.
Anita launched straight in. ‘Three months ago, my friend Stacey was killed by her estranged husband, straight after he’d shot her kids.’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Damien said. ‘Did he go to jail?’
‘No. He shot himself.’
‘Ah.’
‘Shame John Santino didn’t do the world the same favour.’
Damien scrunched up his mouth, relishing that image.
‘Then again,’ said Anita, ‘it would’ve been satisfying to see him go to jail.’
Damien nodded and Anita leaned against the wall next to him, sliding her laptop bag down between her feet.
‘I’m Anita, by the way.’
‘Hi, Anita.’
She let a silence go by and then said, ‘I’ve spent a lot of time going over and over what I could’ve done to keep my friend safe.’
‘Ooh yeah,’ Damien sighed.
‘Me and another good friend—we didn’t know how to help Stacey. Whenever we asked questions, she just retreated further away from us. I’m not sure if we helped or made it worse.’ ‘Right. That’s the trouble.’
‘The thing is, Kendra was so fucking brave. She left the coercive dickhead who’d taken her prisoner. She was coming to find you.’
Damien shrugged, eyes swimming with tears. ‘I should’ve answered the phone.’
‘He was already tracking her by then. And anyway, anyway, please don’t blame yourself. John Santino is the fiend in Kendra’s story. Don’t you siphon one drop of blame off that guy and soak it into yourself. Save all your rage for him.’
Damien pulled a face. Maybe you’re right.
‘Look, Damien, I don’t know you, but I know a lot about the background of this case, and I watched you in that court. You were a wonderful friend to Kendra.’
Damien swayed his head from side to side, not accepting that.
‘Yes. Yes, you were.’
Damien started sobbing again, but more in grief than rage now.
‘Would it be really weird and inappropriate if I hugged you at this point?’ Anita asked.
Damien spluttered a laugh. ‘I work in the theatre. We’re forever hugging each other.’
So on the Elizabeth Street footpath, Anita wrapped her arms around Kendra’s friend.
FIFTEEN
WHEN THE SANTINO VERDICT CAME UP ONLINE, PAULA thought she would be ready for it. Anita had prepared her for the possibility that the case had careered out of control, but still, the news hit her like an unexpected shove and she had to hang on to the edge of her desk to keep her balance.
And then there was the voicemail from Anita, describing the way Santino had smirked as he strolled out of the courtroom with his arm hooked around his pregnant girlfriend.
Driving home from the surgery that day, Paula reminded herself not to give in to catastrophic thinking and jump to the worst prognosis for Brooke Lester.
John Santino had killed his previous girlfriend and then lied about it, but he might now regret what he’d done. The shock of Kendra’s death, followed by the scrutiny of the trial, could render him less of a danger to his current girlfriend. And maybe his sister—manipulative as she was—now had the measure of her brother and would hold him in check in the future.
There must also be hope the new baby could ease things. Paula had seen that happen in the past when patients were entangled in family conflict. The arrival of a baby sometimes softened hard edges and led to a negotiated peace.
When Stacey was heavily pregnant with Cameron, she and Paula used to meet up at Enmore pool.
‘I love floating this giant belly in here,’ Stacey said. ‘The water holds up the weight and gives my tragic swollen ankles a break.’
Gliding along, swishing from side to side like a happy dugong, Stacey chattered about how excited Matt was about the baby.
For a long time before this, Paula had been worried about Matt—his childish jealousy, the moodiness that could contaminate the air around him. On a couple of occasions, Stacey had confided in Paula about some cruel thing her husband had said to her. But he was always torn up with remorse afterwards and Stacey understood that the eruptions of meanness sprang from Matt’s insecurity, so she was confident she could help her husband find his way. Paula heard stories from mutual friends who’d witnessed him verbally abusing Stacey, but Matt was always careful not to do it in front of Paula or Anita. He was too canny for that.
In the pool, Stacey let herself hang, suspended in the deep water, eyes scrunched against the sting of the chlorine, and smiled. ‘Matt’s going to be a great dad,’ she said.
And it was true that Matt took to fatherhood surprisingly well for a man who had always seemed so infantile himself. From the start, he was devoted to the kids—energetic, playful, more upbeat than Paula had ever seen him.
There were photos Paula still had in a folder on her phone: Matt with Poppy on his shoulders and Cameron swinging like a monkey off his outstretched arm; another shot of Matt and both kids asleep in a happy tangle on the sofa. No one who looked at those photos could imagine that man would pursue his two children through a house and shoot them in the back of the head.
Halfway between the medical practice and home, Paula pulled over to the side of the road, not sure she was safe to drive.
Twice during the last week, Paula had driven past Brody Ferguson’s school at three-thirty in the afternoon. There were so many vehicles and people around at pick-up time, no one would notice one more car proceeding slowly past the school gates. The first time, she spotted Brody among the pack of kids before he trotted out to meet his grandmother. Paula smiled and absorbed the immediate calming effect, like an infusion of a wonderful drug that someone should’ve invented. The second time, Rochelle was the one waiting at the gate to meet her boy and that was even better—to see the mother and child together and safe.
This afternoon, it was too late for school pick-up time and, anyway, it felt creepy to drive past the school or the Ferguson house again. She considered parking near the day spa where Rochelle worked. Paula had done that one morning—hopped out of her car, wandered by the shopfront and glanced in to see Rochelle at the front counter chatting to a client. Luckily Rochelle hadn’t noticed her, but even if she had, Paula could easily have made a fancy-seeing-you-here face without making the woman uncomfortable. Through the swirly mauve signage on the plate glass window, Rochelle had appeared cheerful, strong, calm, and that was consoling to Paula.
Even so, she knew she had to stop this behaviour. Instead, she drove straight home and made do with visualising Rochelle and her son, alive and safe.
For a couple of days, Anita was flat out writing newspaper stories and doing radio and TV interviews about the trial, and Rohan would’ve been busy too. He kept missing her calls, then sending apologetic texts in reply. She would suggest a time and place to meet but he would apologise—he hadn’t seen her text until it was too late. When she tried to get their usual text banter happening, Rohan would always answer but in brief, flat messages that tied off the thread. This wasn’t ghosting—he answered every message, always in a friendly or at least polite tone—but he definitely wasn’t communicating in a way that assumed any intimate connection between them. Finally, she had to face the fact he was avoiding her.
Had he suddenly realised he wasn’t interested anymore? Had he grown annoyed by her constant questions about the Santino case? Had he decided that a police detective and a journalist who covered criminal trials was a bad mix? Had he secretly been in a relationship all along? Married even? Had he simply gone off her and so he was dousing her in politeness until she floated off? Was he trying to give her the message as painlessly as possible? Rohan was a considerate guy, so that was the kind of thing he would do. Had he fallen for someone else recently?
Were he and his new girlfriend lying in bed right now, snorting with laughter about what a hopeless joke Anita was?
Anita knew she could spiral into paranoid, self-lacerating thoughts for an impressively long stretch, but the last few months had made her impatient about indulging in shit like that, anything that wasted time or love or energy. She had become more likely than she’d ever been to say, ‘Fuck this,’ and cut through to the centre of things.
She drove to Rohan’s apartment in Alexandria and hit the buzzer outside the building entrance.
‘It’s me,’ she said to the intercom panel.
‘Oh. Oh hi.’ His voice was tinny through the speaker. ‘Come up.’
Anita climbed the flights of stairs in big strides, three at a time, like a little kid trying to feel powerful, and quickly reached Rohan’s floor, where she found him standing in the open doorway.
‘Come in,’ he said.
But she stayed outside on the landing, still puffed from climbing stairs with giant steps. ‘Have you been avoiding me? Am I going crazy?’
‘You’re not crazy. I have been sort of avoiding you. Come inside.’
Anita stayed where she was. ‘Is it because you’ve gone off me?’
‘Not at all. No. God, no. I’ve just been … Look, the way that trial went—I shouldn’t’ve let it get to me, but it did. I wanted us to put him away and we didn’t and now—shit. Look, when I feel like I’ve failed at something, I just—aagghh …’
‘You shut down and go to ground instead of sharing it with your girlfriend?’
‘Yes. I know it’s not ideal. Please come inside, Anita.’
She shook her head. ‘You seemed perfect. But of course—I mean, of course everyone has flaws.’
‘Yeah. I’m definitely not perfect.’
‘And this—what I’m seeing now—is this your main flaw? You clam up and won’t engage if you feel bad about something?’
He nodded.
‘I guess that’s not so bad,’ Anita said. ‘Plus you admit this flaw and you’ll talk about it, so it’s not even that bad.’
Rohan shrugged. ‘That’s not for me to say.’
‘I’m saying that if this is the worst thing I can expect from you, it’s pretty tolerable as flaws go.’
‘Well, okay. Good. Great.’
‘But as long as you know that I can spin myself up into an anxious hissy-fit if I imagine someone—for example, you—is thinking something bad about me and they won’t say it.’
‘I get that,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for contributing to any anxiety.’
‘So your clamming-up thing with my paranoid thing—that’s not a good mix.’
‘No. But I think we can handle it. Would you like to come inside?’
‘Yes, I would like to come inside.’
When they walked down the little hallway into the living room, Rohan reached to put his arms around Anita but she took a step back.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to touch you?’
‘Not quite yet. Not while I’m still upset about the things I imagined you were doing—for example,
laughing about me with your new girlfriend.’
‘Which I wasn’t doing. And there is no new girlfriend.’
‘Right. But it’s like when someone is horrible to you in a dream and you still feel cranky about it when you wake up. The imaginary feelings need time to settle. Like a cooling pond in a nuclear reactor.’
‘A cooling pond in a nuclear reactor.’ Rohan pulled his mouth down to fight off a smile.
‘Yes,’ said Anita, but she couldn’t stop herself grinning. ‘There’s a requisite period of decontamination.’
‘Oh, is there?’
And then they both spluttered into laughter, much more laughter than the moment warranted, releasing a little of the tension that had built up in the last weeks and the weeks before that.
The sex that night was good. They were slightly more self-conscious and courteous with each other than usual, but it was still better than the sex Anita had ever had with anyone else.
Afterwards, lying there together, Rohan rested his hand gently on the spot where her ribcage stopped and the soft part of her belly started. She put her hand on top of Rohan’s, holding it against her skin. She wanted to remind herself that a man could hold a woman’s body with tenderness. She didn’t explain what she was doing, but she figured there was a good chance he understood anyway and was considerate enough not to diminish it by saying anything.
The next Sunday, Anita and Rohan decided to catch the ferry to Manly—aiming for a restorative day of inhaling the ocean, walking along the wintery beach, stuffing their faces with burgers—and they invited Paula to join them but she said no.
Anita was still worried her friend might be shaken by the Santino verdict, especially after Anita had persuaded her to invest emotional currency in the trial, building up expectations of a satisfying result.
Paula had sounded okay when they talked on the phone, but Dr Kaczmarek could always bung on that calm doctor voice, so Anita remained uneasy.
Change your mind and come to Manly with us today. A xx