A Perfect Likeness

by Renee Kira

  I scold myself for not paying attention to his phone calls earlier. The link I have been looking for could be close.

  ‘Good afternoon. Edmund Keane speaking.’

  ‘Mr Keane. It’s Isobel Franco speaking. I missed your call.’

  There’s a pause before he answers. ‘Miss Franco,’ he says, his tone cool. ‘Finally, we speak.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I did get your message. It’s been a hectic time.’

  ‘I understand. When I saw you the other week I almost came and spoke to you then. Of course, it was the wrong place.’ He is talking about the funeral. It wasn’t my imagination; he was looking at me that day.

  My gut wants me to ask him about the old hospital site straight away. Did he know Veronica? Was she trying to do a deal with him or someone else?

  ‘I’ve been wanting to set a meeting with you. It’s well overdue,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’ That doesn’t give away much. ‘Is this something we can speak about over the phone?’

  ‘No.’ His answer is firm. ‘It’s of a personal nature so I think best dealt with in person. Anyhow, my instructions are to meet with you.’

  ‘Instructions? From who?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s not the kind of thing we should discuss over the phone.’

  ‘Right.’ I wasn’t going to get anywhere with a phone call. ‘When are you thinking?’

  ‘How about tomorrow, late in the day. Say six pm?’

  ‘Okay.’ I hesitate. That is late in the day, almost like he doesn’t want anyone to be around. ‘Is this about Veronica Hayes?’

  Silence. I wait for him to speak first. I count to ten but he still hasn’t said anything.

  ‘It’s best I see you in person,’ he says finally. ‘I can fill you in on everything then, Miss Franco.’

  Edmund Keane hangs up before I can ask another question. Nothing new has been revealed, I’m going to have to meet him in person.

  Veronica had been angry that my grandfather did a deal behind her back once. Had Edmund Keane done the same thing? Could she have confronted him?

  Still, none of that could explain why he wanted to speak to me now. What could I have to do with any of it?

  Frustration was becoming a familiar feeling. Like most people, I like closure. When a television series ends with a cliffhanger, I can’t stand it. Let alone something that happens in real life.

  Maybe Google is my friend. I’d spent a lot of time searching Veronica, but not Edmund Keane. I walk towards my study. Opening my laptop, I click on the internet browser. I type both their names into the search bar.

  ‘Edmund Keane, Veronica Hayes’

  All of the results are recent news articles about Veronica. There is nothing there to link the two of them together. I try searching for Edmund Keane without Veronica’s name.

  The first page is his professional website and brief mentions of his work in the media. On the second page, I find an application to the local council to extend his house and a picture of him and his wife playing tennis at the local club. They’re both smiling and wearing white polo shirts and those sweat bands around their wrists that were big in the eighties.

  Since he’s a lawyer, I search through the court records. I don’t expect him to have any kind of criminal past, or he wouldn’t be working. He’s a country lawyer, I figure a lot of his clients are fighting over fence lines or updating their wills. But then I find something interesting.

  There’s an order placed by a court. It’s something to do with a superannuation company he acts as trustee for. That’s not unusual, it’s probably a client. Often people have accountants set up these kinds of structures, but sometimes lawyers do it as well. It’s the mailing address that gets my attention. It’s a very familiar post office box. I’ve seen it on my grandfather’s documents before.

  I type out the full address into Google. That’s where I find it. There’s dozens of companies set up, using that address. And it looks like money has moved through all of them. One of them stands out.

  The V and M Hayes Family Trust.

  Veronica and Max Hayes. It’s unusual for a single person to set up a family trust. There’s no real benefit unless you're trying to minimise tax. Unless Veronica made a lot more money than she let on, or had received some kind of massive payday, there was no need for it.

  What was she hiding?

  I sigh out loud. I feel like all the pieces of a puzzle are in front of me, but I have no way to put them together.

  27

  Maya

  I don’t want to go home.

  David has a day off, he’s there. He’ll be waiting. This morning I said the four words I’ve been dreading.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  I didn’t mean to say them. My timing was terrible. They fell out of my mouth without me thinking. As if the power to stop myself had been taken away. David didn’t flinch, he kept packing the boys’ lunches. He couldn’t have thought I meant about educational options or paint colours or holidays. I stood on the other side of the kitchen bench, not moving, waiting for him to look up. When he finally did, he saw my face.

  His eyes widened and he straightened his back. The knife he was spreading jam with was placed down on the bench. He waited for me to speak.

  ‘Later. After the school run,’ I said, backtracking.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll see you when you get back.’

  His voice was flat and I wondered if he already knew what I was going to tell him. Maybe this is not the right thing.

  I dropped the boys off out the front of their school. I used to walk in with them. They like it better now if I stop at the gate and let them squeeze out the back door all on their own, even though their backpacks are almost as big as they are. I wait a minute, watching them run towards their classroom.

  I don’t want to go home.

  Now I am in the supermarket, walking up and down the aisles, putting things I don’t need into my trolley. The cupboards are already full at home.

  I blurted out those words and now I’ve started something I can’t stop. A runaway train. An avalanche. When I tell David the truth, I’m going to have to tell him all of it. Which means everything about Veronica. Why did I do it?

  Because you can’t live like this. A voice in my own head answers my question.

  There it is. That force in my unconscious that makes me act. We think we’re in control of our lives. We think we control who we love and who we spend our time with. I’m not sure that’s the case.

  There are truths about ourselves that we can’t escape. We can avoid them, living our lives around them. But they still exist. There are pieces of myself that I’ll never be free of. They wait on the periphery, like a constant anxiety. They eat away at everything. Given enough time, ignored for long enough, they’ll cause the other parts of your life to collapse.

  As long as I live in a house with a man I don’t love, those feelings will be there. The anxiety will eat away at me like soda on rotten teeth. I deserve to be loved. So did Veronica.

  David constantly puts me on edge, I’m always trying to do the right thing, trying to earn points in a game I don’t understand. Until I become a version of myself I don’t recognise. David was the yin to Veronica’s yang. She took me as I was and never asked me to be anyone else. From the day I met her in mothers’ group she was my closest confidante. She was my safe harbour. All those things David never gave me, she did. He knew that before I did.

  If I had found this courage sooner, Veronica would still be alive. The first thought I had when I heard her body was found on the beach was that I could have prevented it.

  ‘Maya?’ A voice pulls me from my own thoughts.

  I look up and see Liam Goddard standing next to me, putting apples in a string bag.

  ‘Hi, Liam. Sorry, I was in my own world.’ I smile, as if nothing is wrong.

  ‘Yeah, I could tell. How are you doing?’ His brow furrows as he asks, as if he expects me to answer in the negative.

&n
bsp; ‘Fine. Just fine. Trying to get back to normal.’

  He gives a weak smile. ‘Isobel said the same thing to me the other day.’

  I nod. To be honest, I haven’t had a lot to do with Liam since high school. Everything I know about him came through Veronica. She never told me Liam was Max’s father. There’s a good chance there are other things she never told me. I wonder if he misses her. I wonder if he feels guilty like I do.

  ‘I’ve got to ask you something.’ He puts the bag of apples in his trolley behind him and steps closer. ‘If it’s okay.’

  There’s apples in my own cart but I don’t remember putting them there. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Have you seen Max? Or Veronica’s parents?’ His face looks hopeful.

  ‘I’ve seen Heather. Max was back at school this week.’

  He nods. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Not good.’ I don’t think any of us are good.

  ‘Do you think… would you talk to her for me? About Max? I don’t think I’m on the birth certificate.’

  ‘He’s yours though Liam, isn’t he?’

  ‘She told me that, when he was born. We weren’t really together. It was always off and on between us. I tried. I really stuffed things up with her though. I let her down.’

  ‘You did?’ Veronica never told me why things didn’t work with them.

  He nods. ‘It was a dumb thing. A really dumb thing. I lost some money. Some of it was Veronica’s. I thought I could pay it back, but I couldn’t. If that costs me Max…’

  ‘You broke up over money?’ It was also the thing that came between me and her.

  ‘I guess it was a part of what ended us,’ Liam confirms.

  Veronica did love money. Money for the sake of money. She had goals she was always chasing. Every day she had to speak with a certain amount of clients. That would lead to a certain amount of property listings. In turn, that gave her a level of commission. When I asked what she planned to do with all the money she looked lost. She never knew what she was going to do with the money, just that she wanted all of it. She certainly would not have liked someone losing her money.

  I think of the day before she died, when we took the boys to the playground by the beach. I watched their heads bob around as they weaved around the playground equipment.

  ‘You can’t stay with him,’ said Veronica.

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’ She knew about David. Even if I wanted to, I could never keep a secret from her.

  ‘Move in with me. We’ll be fine. Like our own little family.’ She linked her arm through mine and the red waves of her hair spilled over my chest. I let myself indulge in the thought for a moment. It could work. We understood each other. We parented in similar ways. And what was wrong with two mothers sharing a house? There was no other person that I’d rather spend my time with than her.

  ‘I could live with you?’

  ‘Of course you could. Pack a bag. Don’t tell David. We’ll work it out as we go.’

  And there would be a lot to work out. Would I have to share custody? How would we all fit in Veronica’s tiny house. And what about my Dad?

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Are you afraid of David?’

  ‘No. It’s my Dad. He needs me.’

  ‘He’ll be okay. I know he’s sick. But he’ll want you to be happy.’

  ‘It’s not what he thinks that I’m worried about. I don’t have a job, Veronica. I can’t afford his medical bills on my own.’

  She bit her lip, taking a moment before she spoke. ’I can. I’ll help you.’

  But I knew that she couldn’t. She had a mortgage and a car loan plus the fees at the school. She made good money but it wouldn’t carry all of us. I would never burden her like that. ‘You have to look after yourself and Max.’

  She shook her head. ‘I know. You’ve told me before. Something I’ve been working on is about to pay off. It’s going to be enough to look after your Dad.’

  I wasn’t sure I believed her. Veronica was always chasing a deal. They didn’t always materialise.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s… a deal. Something I tried to put together a couple of years ago but it fell through. I might be able to get it together again.’

  ‘What, like a development site? Is it a hotel?’

  She smiled. ‘Nothing like that. I’ll tell you once it’s all done. I’m close. You know how it goes, though. It’s all about timing.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Maya,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘I want to look after you.’

  ‘That’s sweet. But we’ll be okay.’ I smiled at her.

  She shook her head, the expression on her face serious. ‘I’m I love with you, Maya.’

  It had taken a moment for her words to register, for me to entirely understand her meaning. It was both entirely unexpected but also incredibly right.

  ‘Maya? Are you okay?’ I’ve forgotten Liam is standing in front of me. My mind comes back to the supermarket. The reds and greens of the produce section are too bright, their colours glaring. This world feels too real.

  ‘I loved her,’ I say out loud. Liam looks at me as if I’ve said something strange, which I have. My internal thoughts have mixed up with my external world. It doesn’t faze me anymore. ‘Don’t you miss her?’

  He’s confused but he answers anyway. ’I’m sad that she’s gone. And I’m devastated for Max. But to be honest, Maya, she didn’t want anything to with me over the last few years. Now her parents are keeping me from Max. I don’t know what to do.’

  I nod. ‘That’ll all be okay. Get a court order. DNA if you need. Kids need parents. Max needs you.’ I’m not sure where the words come from but they ring true. I wonder what’s going to happen to my own boys now.

  Liam looks over his shoulder at something. He looks angry.

  ‘Maya Henry?’ A cold voice is calling my name.

  I turn around and Stacey Collins is there, standing next to another officer who I haven’t seen before.

  ‘Maya?’ she repeats, blinking. Her expression is serious.

  There’s a heavy hand on my shoulder, I flinch but it’s only Liam. He steps between me and Stacey Collins.

  ‘Maya, I’m requesting you to come with me to Waringal station for questioning.’

  Liam puts a hand in front of me, shielding me from Stacey. ‘Come on, don’t you think we’ve all had enough of this? She’s grieving. Let her be.’

  Stacey glances at Liam but then turns to look me straight in the eyes. ‘We’d like to question you in relation to the murder of Veronica Hayes.’

  ‘You did,’ I say. ‘You already did.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And this time we’d like you to come with us to the station. I don’t want to arrest you or handcuff you. But the detectives on the case would like to speak with you.’ She’s speaking slowly now, like she thinks I’m a small child. Or psychotic.

  ‘How long is this going to go on for? Give us all a break,’ says Liam.

  A small crowd has formed around us in the supermarket. One of the officers steps closer to me. A second is edging Liam away. For the first time, I notice there are more police. There’s four of them just inside the glass automatic doors. Six cops in Cape Cross and it’s not even New Year’s Eve.

  I feel hands on my shoulders. It’s not Liam now, but Stacey and her colleague walking me out of the supermarket. Obliging, I go with them. It feels like everything is in slow motion. Like I’m drunk, or drugged or half asleep.

  ‘I would never hurt Veronica,’ I say but no one answers. ‘I would never hurt her. I loved her.’

  28

  Isobel

  ‘I don’t believe any of this.’ I shake my head, my eyes on my phone screen. I’ve been texting Maya all afternoon, ever since Liam called me. She hasn’t answered. ‘Maya doesn’t have a violent bone in her body.’

  It’s close to dark outside and the pub is full, but Liam has someone covering for him on the floor. We’re out the back in his offi
ce. It’s a small room with a chunky pine desk in the middle and diplomas on the wall that look like they’ve been gathering dust for a decade.

  The noise of the pub is muffled by the closed door. It’s stuffy and about five degrees too warm, but I don’t complain.

  ‘You don’t need to be a violent person to hurt somebody.’ Liam has a cup of green tea in front of him, which makes me realise every other time we’ve been together we’ve both been drinking.

  ‘What did she say exactly?’

  He takes a moment to answer. ‘We were talking about Max. About being a parent. Then all of a sudden the cops were there. I didn’t notice them at first. I was angry when I saw them.’

  ‘Angry? At Maya?’ There’s cup of black coffee in front of me but I haven’t touched it.

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘Stacey Collins. That detective. I told her to give us all a break. Then I clicked that this was serious. That Maya was in trouble. She was real strange, Isobel. She wasn’t herself at all. She said that she loved Veronica.’

  ‘They spent a lot of time together. Veronica was her best friend.’

  ‘No, that’s not what she meant. Not best friend. I think she was in love with her.’

  ‘In love? Like in a relationship together?’

  He nods. ‘It sounded a lot like romantic love.’

  Well, that was something else entirely. All signs pointed to Veronica having a lover. It had been on everyone’s minds that love gone wrong led to someone pushing her off those cliffs. In my mind, that dark, hypothetical figure had always been a man. But Maya?

  ‘Maya in love with Veronica…’ I say the words out loud with a sigh. ‘I didn’t see that coming.’

  We are both silent as the possibility sinks in.

  ‘I guess it could make sense.’ Liam is lost in his own thoughts, looking at the wall over my shoulder.

  ‘People fall in love all the time. Why wouldn’t it make sense?’ I ask.

  ‘What if Veronica wasn’t in love with Maya?’