by Renee Kira
A female officer sits on the other side of the desk, her blond head pointed downwards at a pile of paperwork. After a few beats, she looks up.
‘I’m looking for my Dad,’ I say. She blinks, peering at me a moment longer than feels comfortable.
She nods as if nothing is wrong. ‘Mr Franco will be out soon.’
‘Is he under arrest?’
Her smile flatlined. ‘Unless you’re his lawyer, I can’t tell you that.’
She’s tougher than she looks.
‘Does he need a lawyer? Has he been cautioned?’ My voice is as flat as her expression.
The edges of her mouth creep upwards again. ‘He’ll be along shortly.’
I should sit down, but there’s nowhere to sit. She wants me to leave, but I wait in the cold reception area for the chance I overhear something. For now, there’s only the hum of a computer and the occasional scratch of the officer’s pen on paper. More than likely, the walls are soundproofed.
It’s close to half an hour of waiting in the small room. Finally, the door makes a loud clicking sound as it’s unlocked from the other side. It opens, and my father walks through. A uniformed police officer stands in the doorway, watching him leave.
My father’s eyes meet mine. His expression is glassy, the lines on his face are more pronounced. I don’t want to be the first to talk, so instead I motion to the exit door.
I can feel the eyes of both police officers on us as we walk to the street. With a click on the remote, I unlock my car. My father opens the passenger door and sits inside. Once my door is shut, I wait for him to speak. It feels like an eternity is passing.
‘I’m so sorry, Isobel,’ he finally says.
7
Maya
I am living one problem at a time. One day at a time. No, scratch that. An hour at a time. My movements are methodical; I remind myself how to get out of bed or how to walk into a kitchen. It’s like the basic instructions of life which were once inscribed into my brain have been obscured by a thick, dark fog.
Six days have passed, and each has shown me a new type of pain. Each morning, I shower and dress. I put food in my mouth, chew it and swallow. David has been watching me, asking after me. It feels like he’s always a step or two behind me, a shadow in the house.
David stayed home with Jacob and Noah while I went to Veronica’s funeral. There wasn’t any other option. Dad is too sick to watch them on his own now. David’s family are in Melbourne. Everyone else we know would be in attendance. So I ended up going to my best friend’s funeral alone.
The police released Veronica’s body to her family. They’ve made no statement. It might have been a suicide spot, but the town is full of murder talk. If they are investigating anything, they are doing it quietly. Maybe they’re not coming for me.
This morning was the funeral. The arches of my feet are on fire and all I can think about is getting these silly boots off. I park my car in the garage, next to David’s ute.
Once I’m inside, I pull off my boots and leave them at the front door. I hear laughter in the playroom. They’ve brought in all the chairs from the dining room and hung blankets across them, making a giant fort.
‘How was it?’ David asks, sticking his head through two suspended blankets.
‘Sad,’ I reply. ‘It’s real now. I’ve spent the last week going to pick up the phone to call her… and then I remember.’
He says nothing. The boys must have cars in their fort, they’re making engine noises. The soles of their feet stick out from one side. Those four feet seem so small and clean and innocent. The last few months have been so hard.
‘I might go take a shower.’ I lean my neck to one side and hear a crack.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Any talk on what happened?’
I shake my head. Maybe the truth won’t ever come out. As I turn towards the master bedroom, I hear a knock on the front door. Through the cloudy pane of glass, I can make out a pair of shadowy figures.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say.
‘Okay,’ David replies, getting pulled back into the blanket fort by the twins.
I’m tired. I want this day to be over.
I open the door to find two sombre looking police officers in their dark navy uniforms.
‘Maya Henry?’ Asks the one on the left, a woman a few years younger than me. Her tied-back hair is shining onyx and her eyes emerald. She’s wearing no make-up, but she would look beautiful if she did.
I nod. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m Senior Sargent Stacey Collins. This is Senior Constable Dax Martin.’ She gives a sideways nod of her head to her colleague beside her. He is younger again, hanging a step behind.
‘Okay.’
They both wait. She holds eye contact with me. Do they want me to ask them in?
‘Is everything all right?’ I say.
She nods. ‘We’d like to talk to you about Veronica Hayes.’
‘I just got back from her funeral.’ My tone is curt, but I didn’t care.
David has left the playroom; I can see his profile from the corner of my eye.
‘Can we come in?’ The other officer comes forward as he speaks.
‘Okay,’ I agree. I open the door all the way. David takes a step closer and wraps an arm around my waist, protectively.
‘Do you think today is really the day for this?’ he asks. ‘Her friend has just been buried.’
The two cops exchange a glance but don’t offer any apology.
I catch David’s eye. ‘It’s okay,’ I say.
They come inside and they don’t offer to take their shoes off. This is a shoes-off house. If the spotless carpets don’t give that away, then the neat line of shoes against the wall should. I grit my teeth, but I say nothing.
I step into the hall and they follow. I see Stacey Collins look through the open double doors to the playroom. Its mess of Lego, toy cars and blanket fort are in full view.
‘There’s another room we can sit in at the back of the house,’ I say. They both give small nods of their heads in acknowledgement. I turn to David. ‘Can you keep the boys busy?’
‘I think I should be in there,’ he replies.
‘It’s fine.’ I shake my head.
‘You don’t have to talk to them at all if you don’t want to. Especially not today,’ he says in a low whisper.
‘It’s better to get it over with.’
He looks like he won’t let me go, but I shrug him off and turn towards the lounge room at the rear of the house. The two officers are only a few steps behind me, and I know that they can hear everything we say. I can feel their eyes on my house, making assumptions.
I motion for them to sit on the pale blue couch in the lounge room. I take the navy armchair opposite. In the middle of the room is a chocolate-coloured coffee table, with three ceramic apples in its centre. I had to order them online and they took weeks to arrive. The boys aren’t allowed in here.
‘So, what do you want to talk about?’ I ask.
The female cop leans forward. ‘Veronica Hayes’s death wasn’t a suicide.’
Four eyes watch me, unblinking. The familiar tune of a kids’ cartoon floats down the hallway. Thank God. David won’t hear any of this. I’m half expecting him to follow me down here.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ says the male cop. I’ve forgotten his name, so I look for his name tag. Dax. What kind of name is that?
‘She’s not that kind of person.’ After the words come out, I realise I’m talking in the present tense, like she’s still here. ‘She would never leave Max without a mother.’
‘So, you were close.’ She’s making a statement, not asking a question.
‘You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that.’ They know more than the fact that we were friends. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be watching my reactions so closely.
‘I’d like to tell you the cause of death,’ says Stacey. ‘But I will ask you to keep it confidential at this point in the investigation.’
I nod.
‘Strangulation.’ One word. That’s all she says. My mind paints a horrible picture of Veronica, gasping for breath and clutching at her neck. I don’t want to cry in front of these two, but I feel tears behind my eyes.
‘Who do you think would do something like that to her?’ she probes.
‘No one.’ My voice is cracking.
‘What about work?’ asks Dax. ‘An angry client? Anyone who disliked her?’
‘No one. She would have told me.’ She might have upset a few people over the years. Her determination impeded her conduct. She’d mentioned a few, but never their names.
‘You were with Isobel Franco this morning,’ says Stacey.
‘Yes.’
‘Is she a friend, too?’ she asks.
‘We went to high school together.’
‘And did she know Veronica Hayes?’
‘No. Veronica went to the state school. Isobel has been in Melbourne a long time.’
They exchange another glance between themselves.
‘When did you see Veronica last?’ asks Dax.
I wait before I tell them, like I am thinking about it. ‘Saturday morning. We met at the park.’
‘Which park? And at what time?’ presses Stacey.
‘The big one on the foreshore, and I don’t know. Maybe ten.’
‘How would you describe her state of mind?’
The three boys had zipped back and forth on the flying fox, out of earshot. We had sat on the steel park bench, a foot of space between us. The conversation started as awkward and had ended angry. Me saying no to Veronica for the first time. Veronica telling me to toughen up, to get my shit together. She had never said a bad word to me before that day. But I was the one who let her down.
‘Normal. She was fine.’
Stacey Collins looks me dead in the eyes. She knows I’m lying.
8
Isobel
I can’t buy him a coffee; he doesn’t drink it. Nor can I offer to buy him food. He only eats what he cooks himself. There’s no chance I can take him home to Mum, not yet. She’ll be a mess. So, instead of my mother’s noise and outbursts, I get my father’s silence.
Sometimes I think my parents are like two sides of the same crazy coin. I can’t decide which one of them is worse.
I’ve driven to the beach. Not the surf beach or where the cliffs are, but to Safety Beach; a small inlet of sand where it’s possible to swim. There’s no one around. I park the car, but neither of us move to get out.
My father looks straight through the windscreen rather than meet my eye. I look in the same direction, to the silver streak of water on the horizon. It’s not warm enough to swim. There’s not even a dog walker out there today.
He’s still not talking to me. Well, he is talking, but in blunt, single-word sentences. He’s not answering questions about why he was in the police station. His affect hasn’t changed. He’s calm, not upset at all. When I asked how he was treated in custody, he only shrugged.
The car park is elevated. I can see the water, but only a scrap of sand. ‘Do you want to go to the beach?’
‘No.’ He’s not a person who goes to the beach unless it’s for fishing.
Reaching across the car, I lay my hand on his wrist. ‘What’s going on?’
He shakes his head again. ‘It was nothing.’
‘From Mum’s description it didn’t sound like nothing.’
He shrugs and turns slightly to face me. ‘There’s a car park at the top of the cliffs. The cliffs where they found the body of Veronica Hayes.’
Only minutes before I had found her, I’d run down the jagged staircase from that carpark to the beach. ‘Yes.’
‘There was a van there the night before. Around the time of death. A white van.’
I make the connection. ‘What and they think it was you? That’s ridiculous, Dad. Who doesn’t have a white van? Every tradesman in Cape Cross drives one.’
He blinks and breaks eye contact. ‘Someone noticed it that night. They called the police later.’
‘That’s still not enough. Why would they say it was yours?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure who reported it or what they said to the police. Only that there is a witness. They asked me for an alibi.’
‘I’m guessing you were at home.’
‘Of course.’
I shake my head. The cops are grasping at straws. A surge of frustration runs through me.
‘They’ve got nothing. They’ve got nothing on who killed her, so they’re bringing in anyone. Trust me, Dad. I’ve dealt with the cops at work before. I’m the connection here. All they’ve got is me and a white van.’ I tap my fingers on the leather steering wheel.
The police would be under pressure to make an arrest. A murder in a country town always makes an impact. Not to mention, it’s only weeks from the start of the holiday season. Most of the people in this town make the bulk of their income in December and January. None of them want a murder coming up in the search results of the town’s name.
Dad considers this before he speaks. ’Once I had a close friend. She was bright, and after school she studied at the university. We had no free university like here.’
It’s not free. But now wasn’t the time to make a point. To my father, an interest-free student loan was close enough. He gave me a sharp look, so I could tell he wasn’t finished talking.
‘Her doctorate was on justice. On whether justice exists.’
‘Justice exists. We have a whole court system for that.’
‘But who decides on what justice is? If someone breaks into my home and I shoot them, do I go to jail?’
‘Probably not. Not if they were armed.’
‘What if they were ill? Or they were drunk and went into the wrong house?’
‘I don’t know, Dad. That’s why we have courts and judges.’
‘Humans are the only creatures who believe in justice. Dogs don’t believe in justice. Birds don’t. They just live their lives, and sometimes bad and unfortunate things happen. The things I did as a young man, if I did them in Australia no one would care. No one would take any notice in Australia. But in my country, it meant prison. It meant interrogation. It meant being watched and followed. I became a rule breaker when I broke the rules they created.’
‘But that wasn’t right. And a whole government got overthrown.’
He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes things that aren’t right, but they happen. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘What are you trying to say, Dad?’
‘People go to jail for the wrong reasons all the time. They’ve got a van that looks like mine in a car park and my daughter finding a body. I wouldn’t be the first innocent person to be sent to prison.’
How much evidence would they rely on to prosecute? It must have been the middle of the night when the witness saw them. Were they reliable? Did they remember a licence plate? And what were they even doing out on the streets?
‘If you didn’t do it, you didn’t do it. Yon won’t be prosecuted for a crime you didn’t commit. They won’t have the evidence, Dad.’
He shrugs again.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me? Another piece of evidence? What exactly did they say to you in there?’
They have him worried. It must be more than a sighting of his car.
‘Let’s go home,’ he says. ‘Your mother won’t be doing well.’
He won’t answer my questions.
‘You didn’t know her, did you?’ I ask for the second time.
‘Only who she was. That’s all.’ He’s still not looking at me. He’s looking straight ahead at the ocean.
9
Isobel
The last few nights, I’ve seen Veronica. Not literally. When I’m trying to fall asleep at night, a picture flashes in my mind; an image of the dark ocean lapping against pale flesh. I wake up feeling a mix of guilt and nausea.
She’s dead, and I’m alive, combing
through her Instagram feed. Not to learn more about her or celebrate her life either. That might be how I started, but now I’m looking for a suspect. A nasty ex-boyfriend? The only lover I know about is Liam, and he’s not the jealous type.
The likelihood of me figuring it out in my study on a windy Friday night is low. There could be many reasons that she’s dead. Did she wrong a lover? Or a business partner? Or did she go down the wrong path at the wrong time?
I’ve spent most of the last week thinking about her. Not only thinking. If she were alive, it would be considered stalking. Before the funeral, I’d already scoured her social media pages. I go deeper. From a Google search, I find articles in the local paper. They’re all related to her work.
She’s attractive. Her hair is always in a neat bun and she dresses well in dark-coloured suits and crisp shirts. There’s no telling what she wore on the weekend. Her social media pages give little away about her personal life.
The only exception is her son. There’s a crazy amount of pictures of him. It’s like going back in time. I see him as a newborn, as a toddler learning to walk. At the beginning of this year there’s a picture of him on his first day of school.
There was no sign of him at the funeral. Did someone keep him away? What a terrible thing for a kid to go through. Who will be there for him now? Where is his father? I feel a heavy kind of pain in my body when I think of him. The thought of any child suffering is too much for me.
I did get pregnant, once. When I didn’t conceive right away, we found a specialist, and I started hormone treatments. When that didn’t work, I moved on to IVF. It was brutal, both the injections and the pain of collections and transfers. Then there was the waiting. Waiting to find out how many eggs, how many embryos. Waiting to find out if they made it to day three or day five, then if it was sticky enough to stay. From the beginning, I was aware there was only so much I could take.