The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

  The kitchen was broad and airy, with long stone bench-tops and European fittings. Water splashes where he’d been washing potatoes and carrots; three knives side by side on a chopping board. He was a traditionalist: roast turkey, roast vegetables, plum pudding. ‘Out,’ he ordered. ‘Scoot, the lot of you.’

  The energy in him was forced today, Charlie thought, realising his father had ceased to be sleek and toned. His grey hair was thinning, his bones knobbly under dry skin. And he was tired. Ill? wondered Charlie.

  ‘Let me slice and dice for you, Dad,’ he said, glancing through the window above the sink at treetops islanded with terracotta-tiled roofs.

  ‘Scoot, I said.’

  Fay tugged gently at Charlie’s forearm. ‘Leave the master chef to work his magic.’

  She took him into the hallway and past the door to the dining room, where her sisters were laying the table. Down to the study at the front of the house. ‘Sit a moment, dear, I need to have a word before the day gets away from us.’

  She wore cargo pants, a sleeveless top, hoop earrings and subtle eye makeup. He’d always liked her—her looks and warmth and capability. She was sixty and looked fifty. His father was sixty-three and looked seventy-three.

  ‘A word about Dad?’

  ‘You might have noticed he’s lost a lot of weight.’

  ‘He’s been losing it all year.’

  Fay was silent awhile in the little room—a room without character, and Charlie always wondered what they did in it. Bookcases, a reading armchair and a desk with a laptop and a printer, but no grooves worn into it by life. Emailing, he thought. That’s about it.

  ‘He gets tired easily. He’s lost a bit of his spark. He’s making an effort today, but he’ll slip away for a sleep later.’

  ‘Tests?’

  ‘A battery of tests. Enlarged prostate, but that’s to be expected, given his age.’

  She worried the rings on her fingers. She’s ageing, too, Charlie thought, noticing her bony knuckles. She caught him looking and placed one hand over the other in her lap. Her eyes were moist. ‘A lot of it is simply the ongoing harassment. He hasn’t had a moment’s peace in twenty years.’

  ‘What harassment?’

  ‘Phone calls in the middle of the night. Occasional emails and letters. All anonymous.’

  ‘But not police harassment?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes the police,’ Fay said testily. ‘It’s a cold case, after all. Some time-server digs out the file every few years. But mostly it’s the calls and the letters. We got the most recent one yesterday, saying basically the same thing as the others, but pointing out this was the twentieth anniversary.’

  She was in the desk’s swivel chair and swung out of it to reach for a cardboard box on the top shelf of the bookcase. Deposited it in Charlie’s lap. ‘Have a read of that lot.’

  A heap of letters and email printouts. ‘Might take a while.’

  ‘Just read a selection. You’ll get the gist.’

  Filling his lap, placing the box on the floor beside him, Charlie began to read, often skimming. ‘The handwritten ones look like they’re from the same person—that cute little cross instead of a dot above the letter i…’

  ‘Always the same thing,’ Fay said. ‘You killed and buried her. Everyone knows you did it. Do the decent thing and own up to it. So on and so forth.’

  Almost word for word with the first letter Charlie had picked up. He read it, then another, feeling certain that a man had written them—a man who’d possibly forged a new life for himself but still held on to strong old feelings.

  ‘Curious,’ he said. ‘Not nasty, exactly—kind of imploring.’

  Fay was awkward. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, heaven knows I can’t pass judgment, but there was a rumour Rose was seeing someone.’ She put up her hands as if to ward him off. ‘I know nothing about it, none of my business, but I’ve often wondered: if she was seeing someone, could he be the one making calls and sending letters? Sorry to bring it up.’

  Charlie made a don’t-worry gesture. ‘That’s okay.’ He paused. ‘But you don’t know for sure she was seeing someone?’

  ‘Just a rumour. If there’s any truth to it, perhaps someone she was teaching with?’

  ‘Not her lodger, that’s for sure,’ Charlie said.

  ‘The creep? The one you and Liam chased off? Unlikely. And as I said—just a rumour.’

  I’d like to talk to Lambert all the same, Charlie thought, ask him who Mum was seeing, who was visiting. He returned his attention to the sheets of paper in his lap. Only a scattering of emails, probably from untraceable addresses. Most of the correspondence was those handwritten letters. Not threatening, except in their anonymity and persistence.

  ‘It’s getting him down,’ Fay said.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do anything,’ Charlie said. ‘As you know, I’m a bit persona non grata with Victoria Police at the moment.’

  She touched the back of his hand with her warm fingers. ‘It might help you to know that your dad thinks Inspector Allardyce is, quote, a complete prick.’

  She leaned back. ‘Sorry, forget it, I understand there’s nothing you can do. I just wanted you to know, that’s all. It seemed important.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me.’

  She smiled and rose from her chair. ‘Back to the fray, before my sisters and their better halves start bothering your father.’ At the door, she turned to him. ‘Did we tell you we’re going on a cruise in the new year? Asia. Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan, mostly.’

  ‘No one tells me anything,’ Charlie said—and instantly, in his head, his ex-wife’s voice: ‘No, Charlie, it’s not that you don’t get told, it’s that you don’t listen.’

  ‘We’ll send you photos,’ Fay said. ‘We’ll Skype you.’

  12

  BETWEEN CHRISTMAS DAY and the new year, Charlie swam, surfed, walked, cycled. Emma came to stay; he barely saw her. Rhys and Fay flew to Japan. Two days later, the first WhatsApp photos arrived. A shot of the cruise ship moored at Yokohama, their cabin, the shoreline on departure, a line of tables groaning with seafood and wine.

  Otherwise he spoke to Anna—yearned for Anna. Phone calls every afternoon, Messenger morning and evening. Hope your day goes OK or Sweet dreams and a row of kisses. Or a photo, with some good-natured winding-up. Or just a photo: Charlie’s feet in his best or his everyday Crocs—he knew she hated both pairs. More dolphin pics, to which she responded Nice driftwood. She had sent him a stack of photos on Christmas Day—her parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces and nephews grinning madly in paper hats. One day he’d know their names and their place in her life—if she was still talking to him next year, the year after, five years down the track.

  He wondered exactly what part of that he’d stuff up. He had an acute brain for criminal lives, criminal connections, criminal behaviour, but seemed to zone out when it came to parsing the links between the innocent.

  It had driven Jess nuts. ‘I told you,’ she might say, teeth gritted: ‘He was the one who used to go out with my sister.’

  Charlie would say, ‘Right, got you now,’ but he usually hadn’t.

  What struck him most, now that he wasn’t hunting rapists, flashers, stalkers, molesters and perverts, was how long the days were. There had never been enough time when he was working, and now there was too much. And he wasn’t accustomed to civilian life, civilian ways of thinking. He was free to follow his instincts and cast his investigative net wide without being answerable to senior officers, partner, DPP. He didn’t have to brief anyone, seek approval, submit expenses or overtime. The rules and procedures of evidence no longer applied to him. No need to fear that every move he made, statement he gathered or thought he scribbled in his notebook might be reviewed or criticised by a senior officer or used against him in a courtroom.

  Free. But he didn’t feel free. He had no licence to practise as a detective. He had no backup, no partner, only hostile ex-workmates. No access to phone, tax, banking and ve
hicle registration records. As for cold-case access, no way would he be allowed to view any files that remained of the investigation into Rose Deravin’s disappearance. And the average Swanage house or business wouldn’t have had CCTV back then. Mobile phone towers had been scarce. Dashcams didn’t exist. No freeway cameras or toll records—Eastlink and Peninsula Link were just pipedreams.

  I’m just marking time, he thought. But Fay’s remark about his mother seeing someone stayed with him so, on a Saturday morning in early January, he decided to resume his investigation into Rose’s life and probable death. Two lines of investigation: who his mother was, and what Shane Lambert knew. If he could be found.

  Rose first. Her best friend at the time of her disappearance was Karen Wagoner, a teaching colleague who, with her husband and kids, sometimes attended the Menlo Beach barbecues. Years later, Charlie had tracked her down to Cowes, on Phillip Island, but she’d professed not to know much about his mother’s private life, thoughts, heartaches or aspirations. ‘I just had to get away after it happened,’ she’d said back then. ‘You know, to escape memories.’

  Maybe this time she’d be more forthcoming, or remember more, or be less affected by sad memories.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me again,’ he said that afternoon.

  ‘You’re very welcome. But the pain never goes away, does it?’

  There were many responses to that, most of them trite. Charlie nodded and sipped watery plunger coffee and wondered about the pain of her memories.

  Her house, on a back street, looked out on a heat-struck garden and sagging side fences, but if she simply walked to the shops, the jetty and the beach, she’d have clear views across the water to Swanage, where her best friend had last been seen alive. Maybe she liked to put a dramatic spin on things, thought Charlie. And perhaps that was necessary: she was an inert lump on the sitting-room sofa otherwise.

  He reached for a discoloured Tim Tam on the chunky coffee table that divided the chunky room. ‘You still teaching at Inverloch?’

  She nodded. ‘For another year or so.’

  ‘And the kids?’

  Karen Wagoner seemed to expand. ‘Geoff’s in Perth, high up in the Commonwealth Bank.’

  ‘And Hazel?’

  Wagoner deflated. Wriggled her pillowy shoulders against the plump cushions. ‘My daughter was married for a while.’

  And there she stopped. ‘Okay,’ Charlie said, thinking: odd response.

  ‘She’s a teacher. Geelong,’ Wagoner said. After a pause: ‘In a same-sex relationship now.’ The words were squeezed out.

  Charlie nodded as if he understood, then Wagoner brightened again. ‘But Ash, my granddaughter, she’s the light of my life. She’s something to do with TV.’

  Treading carefully, Charlie said, ‘Do you stay in touch with Alan?’

  She frowned. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Sorry, none of my business.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that, Charlie. Divorce was always on the cards. When Rose…That was the tipping point, really.’

  Tipping point. But what had tipped? As she talked, Charlie recalled Alan, the husband, a genial, bulky guy who carted water, swept chimneys, dug fence posts, did a bit of bobcat landscaping and even shore sheep for the hobby farmers of the Peninsula. An uneducated man who had married an educated woman and expressed a simple delight in her brains and looks—sketchy brains and looks, according to Charlie’s father.

  Charlie kept up his nods and when he was sure she’d stopped, he said, ‘Like I told you on the phone, I’ve been doing more digging, trying to work out what happened to Mum.’

  She frowned again. ‘Not sure what I can add, but you’re police, you’d have all the resources, wouldn’t you? But I expect there’s restrictions on what you’re allowed to look into?’

  Not stupid, then. ‘On temporary leave,’ he said, not wishing to misrepresent himself. ‘Do you mind if I go over old ground?’

  ‘Like I said, dear, I’m not sure what I can add. But I’m happy to help.’

  ‘What sorts of things did the police talk to you about back then?’

  ‘I don’t think they talked to me specifically. I remember they came to the school and asked everyone about Rose’s movements, that’s all.’

  ‘What about cold-case detectives over the years?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you have your own theories what might have happened to her?’

  ‘That man in her house.’

  ‘Shane Lambert.’

  A shrug. Perhaps she’d never known his name. Charlie said carefully, ‘Turns out he was in jail that day. Meanwhile, everyone else seems to think Dad had something to do with it.’

  She went pink. ‘Ridiculous. Your dad wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  A strong response. Had there been something between them? Charlie tried to recall the undercurrents at the barbecues, picnics and dinners. The play of looks and touches. But all he could see was his father tolerating the Wagoner family for his wife’s sake.

  ‘If not Dad or the housemate, was there anyone else who might want to hurt her? One of the teachers? One of the kids at school? A friend we didn’t know about? Was she dating anyone?’

  ‘If you’re looking at my ex-husband, forget it. Alan’s a bit rough around the edges, but as gentle as a lamb.’

  Interesting, thought Charlie. Perhaps she fancied Dad and thought—hoped?—her husband fancied my mother. A nice little rearrangement. Except everyone lost and she’s been living here in spite and misery for twenty years. ‘I’m not looking at anyone,’ Charlie said.

  ‘She did say to me once how the minute she separated from your dad, all kinds of creeps came out of the woodwork.’

  ‘Creeps.’

  Karen Wagoner shifted to get comfortable, fighting the sofa’s soft grip on her back and thighs, and made a casual gesture. ‘People’s husbands. A couple of the teachers. Even a man in the post office.’

  ‘Did she spend time with any of them?’

  ‘One. And he got physical with her one day, she said.’

  Why didn’t you tell me any of this a few years ago? Charlie wondered. ‘Was she hurt?’

  ‘I didn’t see any bruises, if that’s what you mean. But I believed her, she wasn’t a liar like some of these women. Waiting a year or two to see how the wind’s blowing before they come forward and make their accusations.’

  Men betray women, thought Charlie. But oh boy, some women give it a red-hot go, too. He wanted air. He wanted to get in his car and drive. The room was too blonde, too cushiony, the ceiling too low. There was nothing in Karen Wagoner’s house to welcome its inhabitant, let alone any visitor. It was too highly polished, too hostile to fingermarks.

  ‘This man: did she stop seeing him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know who he was?’

  Charlie saw Karen Wagoner gather to herself the world’s wickedness. It was ghastly to see. ‘I can’t be certain,’ she said, ‘but I think it was one of the English teachers. Drew Quigley.’

  13

  ‘I HAD A SOFT SPOT for your mother,’ Alan Wagoner said. ‘Lovely lady.’

  One of those old-fashioned guys who didn’t use the word woman. A lady was respectable, wife and mother material; a woman was more independent. She’d be trickier.

  Charlie thought these things as Wagoner popped the tops of two lager cans and, with a yank of the cellophane sleeve, spilled crackers onto a plate. Twenty crackers? An outdoors man unused to kitchen finesse.

  ‘A real shame,’ he went on. ‘To think, all these years and no one knows what happened.’

  It was late the same afternoon and Karen Wagoner’s ex-husband had been easy to find. A falling-down weatherboard on the outer edge of Tyabb, dead grass rather than garden, with half a hectare to park a listing caravan named Loserbago, his old tip truck, a bobcat and a F100 pickup—Wagoner’s Wagon scrolled in gold on both doors. In retrospect it would have made more sense to track down his mother’s sometime lover first; but the hours were closin
g in, and Alan Wagoner lived only fifteen minutes from Tidepool Street.

  ‘I’ve been trying to find out for twenty years,’ Charlie said. ‘And just now I have some time on my hands so I’m talking to everyone who knew her back then.’

  Wagoner hunched his shoulders as if he’d been caught in a high beam. Still a solid-looking man, he said he hadn’t been home long when Charlie arrived. Dust and grime barely sluiced away, a faint whiff of perspiration, and he still wore shorts, a blue singlet and oil-stained steel-capped boots. ‘I think Karen’s the one you should talk to. She knew your mum better than I did.’

  ‘I’ve just come from her place, in fact.’

  Wagoner said nothing, did nothing, but there was pain behind it. He took a delicate sip of beer, the can a squib in his frying-pan hand, and said, ‘How was she?’

  Charlie couldn’t say ‘fine’ or ‘good’ or ‘inert and sour’ to this man, so he nodded agreeably and said, ‘She was helpful, but just as much in the dark as anyone else.’

  More pain in Alan Wagoner’s eyes, there and gone again. If Charlie was any judge, the guy had only partly resolved his life since Karen left him unmoored twenty years ago.

  As if to underscore that, the house creaked just then, responding to a late-afternoon wind coming across the flats, and the chipboard cupboard doors and kickboard were dark, swollen, as if never proofed against the wet slap of a floor mop. Wagoner was tidy, though: no dust, clutter or dirty dishes, just the order of a man still learning to tame his indoor life.

  Charlie said, ‘She told me what Geoff and Hazel are up to. I haven’t seen them for yonks.’

  Another shift in Wagoner’s face. Uneducated, but no dummy, he suddenly peered into Charlie, and behind Charlie, for the truth. ‘Charlie, I don’t know what happened to your mum. I was never really part of that crowd.’

  Charlie went red. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean you to think I have doubts. I’m just digging around. No one else is looking.’