The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

  ‘Champ.’

  Emma swung the chair beside the bed again. ‘What did the toe cutters want?’ She grinned over her shoulder at Valente.

  Charlie was economical with the truth. ‘The body they found. They think it’s Billy Saul, a kid who went missing around the time your grandmother did.’

  She looked confused. He could see her mind working. And then Valente came further into the room. ‘As I recall, you were on the search party.’

  Charlie nodded. He stopped doing that when the pain arced behind his eyes. ‘Christ.’

  Emma’s face creased. ‘Dad, you okay?’

  Charlie squinted at her, feeling deeply fatigued. ‘I’m fine.’

  She got to her feet. ‘No, you need to rest. Mark will take me home and I’ll pick you up in the morning.’

  But she was biting her bottom lip. She thinks I’ll fall asleep and not wake up, he thought. He said, ‘Go. I’ll be fine. They’ll monitor me all through the night.’

  She wasn’t convinced, but said, ‘Okay.’

  Valente gave her shoulder a little pat as he stepped past her and approached the bed, his massive paw out. ‘Hope you have a restful sleep.’

  He’s getting old, Charlie thought, as he shook hands. Almost seventy. Losing hair, losing weight, losing…force. Funny that he hadn’t noticed before. ‘Mark, I need to thank you.’

  Valente waved that off. ‘Happy to give her a lift.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that, too—but I meant thank you for earlier, the accident.’

  Valente shrugged. ‘I was upon that barren street.’

  Emma, behind him, rolled her eyes at Charlie. He fought down a grin. ‘You saw it all happen?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Was it you who called the ambulance? How was…?’

  ‘She was conscious. In a lot of pain, though.’

  Charlie closed his eyes.

  ‘So I, you know, stayed with her and talked,’ Valente said awkwardly.

  Now Charlie was reluctant for either of them to leave. The world was busy all around him as the wards prepared for the dark hours. ‘Did you see who was driving?’

  ‘I gave a description to the major collision team, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Let the experts do their job, sunshine. Get some rest.’

  Another spasm behind Charlie’s eyes. Emma saw it and said, ‘Dad, he’s right—get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  She kissed him and then Charlie was alone. The evening deepened. Memories returned—urgently, so that he swung his legs out of the bed, placed his feet on the industrial-grade carpet and stood, thinking that to be upright was the cure he needed. But he blanked and swayed and a passing nurse grabbed him. ‘Whoa, not a good idea.’

  This one was Shireen. Dressed differently from Suzi. Agency nurse? She settled him and raced away again, and he dozed, and the night grew fully dark outside. Dark and deep, he thought. Suzi appeared, flicked around his room and said she was going home.

  Charlie was reluctant to sleep. If he slept, concussion would claim him. So he turned on the TV—and realised that he was watching breaking news. Longstaff Street in darkness, men and women working under scorching lights.

  A second body, under the first.

  23

  NO ONE ELSE came for him that evening. No one came to grill him or play cop interrogation games and finally he slept, and in the morning showered, picked at his breakfast and read the news feed on his phone as he waited for Emma. She appeared at 9.15. He was home by 9.45.

  The second remains were those of an adult female, according to the news, and Bekker and McGuire were on his doorstep by ten o’clock.

  ‘We called the hospital, they said you’d already been discharged.’

  Something solemn about the pair of them there at his door when the morning air was so sweet to Charlie, the pull and surge of the sea so mournful. ‘It’s my mother, right?’

  ‘May we come in?’ Bekker said. She cocked her head to take in the lump, the graze on his temple. ‘If you’re up to it.’

  Charlie looked past Bekker at the street. Mrs Ehrlich, washing her car. Otherwise Tidepool was still. ‘You can come in if you’re quiet. My daughter’s here, she’s still asleep.’

  She’d gone back to bed, in fact, explaining that she’d barely slept. Worried about his concussion.

  ‘We need a DNA sample, Charlie, you understand—then we’ll be out of your hair.’

  ‘You’ve found my mother.’

  ‘Yet to be determined,’ McGuire said, remaining one step behind Bekker. Polite enough, but there was masked elation there. If I’m collecting DNA from you, you must be guilty of something.

  ‘Come in,’ Charlie said, stepping back, one hand ready to close the door. Bekker slipped by him first, trailed by McGuire, with her little dead-eyed smile.

  ‘Tea?’ he said, when they were in. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘We can’t stay,’ Bekker said.

  McGuire meanwhile fished a DNA kit from her briefcase. ‘Open wide.’

  Charlie obeyed and she scraped the inside of his mouth as if his DNA were playing hard to get. He stared at her as she did it: the satisfaction in her eyes.

  ‘All done.’

  Suddenly Charlie found himself saying, ‘My mother used to say that. Getting cough medicine into me or splinters out—hold up the needle and say, “All done.”’

  Then he felt embarrassed; they looked embarrassed. McGuire took a step back as she sealed up the sample stick. ‘Yes, well…’

  Charlie turned to Bekker. ‘It makes sense that you’d think it’s my mother, but was there something on the body that pointed you in that direction?’

  McGuire sparked up. She closed in on him. ‘Like what?’

  Charlie kept his gaze on Bekker. ‘Like jewellery. Her chain.’

  In his mind’s eye the chain rested on his mother’s summertime skin, just below her throat. He didn’t want to think of it flopped slackly across her bare bones, the links welded together by the earth and disintegration. ‘Dad gave it to her,’ he said.

  Bekker looked away and said, ‘Just covering bases, Charlie.’

  That was as close to an admission that Charlie would get. But he felt agitated, on the backfoot. ‘Tea?’ he said again.

  McGuire shook her head, but this time Bekker shrugged and said, ‘Why not.’

  They didn’t sit. They stood on the other side of the kitchen bench and watched him limp from the overhead cupboard to the electric jug to the tap above the sink. All the time, he was trying to anticipate their thinking. They couldn’t assume anything—someone else could have been wearing his mother’s chain. Dental records next—but Dr Tidemann had been ancient back then and his surgery on Mornington main street was now a camping shop.

  Which leaves a sample of my DNA, he thought: a mitochondrial match.

  McGuire cut in on his thoughts, lifting her voice above the sound of the electric jug: ‘We were going to talk to your brother, since you’re…unwell,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t track him down.’ She said it with a tone, as if Liam might be guilty, too.

  Charlie said, ‘Simple explanation: he took our mother’s last name.’

  That pleased McGuire. ‘Because he thinks your father killed your mother?’

  ‘Detective Constable McGuire,’ murmured Bekker.

  McGuire was undeterred. ‘We tried to have a word with your father, too. No one home.’

  ‘He’s away.’

  ‘Apparently so,’ McGuire said, bumping against the kitchen bench repeatedly. It was like she wanted to wade through it and attack him.

  ‘Not apparently so, actually so,’ said Charlie. ‘He and my stepmother are overseas.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On a cruise. Off the coast of Japan somewhere. They left before the bodies were found, all right? A holiday. People do have holidays. He hasn’t run away, he’ll be back. But sure, if you want to go ahead and mount some major international arrest and extradition
operation…’

  The heat in his voice delighted her. ‘Ooh, touched a nerve.’

  ‘Detective Constable McGuire.’ Bekker sounded more tired than remonstrative.

  She turned to Charlie. ‘Obviously, we’d like a word with your dad, Charlie.’

  He shrugged. ‘You’ll have to wait. Biscuit?’

  ‘Please,’ Bekker said, casting McGuire a look that Charlie couldn’t read. Knock it off? Keep it up?

  They all perched on the sitting-room armchairs and had nothing to say now. No small talk. No needling. They sipped and stared at each other until McGuire had had enough.

  ‘Talk about cut the tension with a knife,’ she said. ‘Is there anything you’d like to tell us, Charlie—may I call you Charlie? Anything bothering you, any detail you want cleared up, anything that happened back then that suddenly makes sense now?’

  Charlie glanced at Bekker. Bekker merely sipped her tea. So he addressed McGuire. ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Skeletal remains.’

  ‘Cut it out. Blow to the head, like Billy Saul? Blade or bullet nicks?’

  ‘You’ll be notified in due course.’

  Bekker broke in. ‘Actually, it won’t hurt to tell Charlie this: blow or blows to the head, both sets of remains.’

  ‘Massive blows to the head,’ McGuire said. ‘You left- or right-handed, Charlie?’

  He smacked his mug down but said, mildly, ‘Keep it up. I’ve got all the time in the world.’

  ‘Actually, you might not have all the time in the world. Life as you’ve known it might change in profound ways once we make an arrest.’

  ‘Arrest who? My father? On what evidence? And what is this childish fucking game, making me wriggle on the hook?’

  ‘I think both of you should knock it off,’ Bekker said. ‘Charlie, assuming it is your mother we found, any reason she’d be in the same grave as Billy Saul? Did they know each other?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘She didn’t teach him?’

  ‘She taught high school; he was a primary-school kid. And she’d always taught here on the Peninsula. Billy Saul was from Berwick.’

  ‘So there would be no reason for him to be on her street?’

  ‘I have no idea why he would be there. Like I said yesterday, maybe he was killed somewhere else, on the beach for example, then taken there? You led the search: he was being bullied, remember? He ran away and came across the wrong person. But what’s interesting is the lengths this person went to, staging not only a drowning but also my mother’s abduction.’

  ‘If it is your mother,’ McGuire said.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Detective Constable McGuire,’ Charlie said. ‘Whoever did it staged two deaths, kilometres apart, so they wouldn’t be linked.’

  ‘Misdirection,’ McGuire said, in bleak amusement. ‘Now, who would be good at that kind of thing? I know—a cop.’

  ‘Good one,’ Charlie said. He turned to Bekker. ‘Who was killed first?’

  ‘No way to tell.’

  ‘Who was the intended target?’

  ‘Charlie, we don’t know. Either they both were, for whatever reason, or one of them was targeted and the other stumbled on the scene by chance and had to be silenced.’

  ‘Paedophile teacher or townsperson or camp cook or—’

  ‘Charlie, we don’t know, but rest assured all theories will be looked at.’

  ‘Yes, thank you for your contribution, Charles,’ McGuire said.

  Charlie wasn’t finished. ‘Just to be clear: they were found in the same grave?’

  ‘One on top of the other,’ Bekker said.

  Charlie was desperate for the facts that would form a picture in his head. ‘Just left there? Any belongings? Were they wrapped in anything?’

  That alerted McGuire. She leaned towards him. ‘Wrapped in anything? Why would you want to know that? Did a blanket or a rug or a tarp or bedsheets go missing back then?’

  ‘Get out of my face, Detective Constable McGuire.’

  ‘Glad to, Mr Deravin.’

  Charlie took his mug to the kitchen and rinsed it. It was a signal that he was through, and shortly after that he was showing them out, distracted, thinking: Tell Dad. Tell Liam. Tell Anna. Tell Em…

  They all stood for a moment on the veranda, Charlie looking past them to the street, where Mark Valente was walking by, heading for the beach. The old cop knew an unmarked car when he saw one. He gave Charlie an abbreviated nod and walked on in his hard, imperious way.

  Bekker noticed. She turned back to Charlie with a smile. ‘That man does get around.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘The hospital last night, now here.’

  ‘You knew him at the Rosebud cop shop, right? Maybe you should run after him and pick his brains.’

  ‘Very droll. We’ll speak again, Charlie.’

  ‘As soon as the results come back, let me know.’

  She shrugged, declining to commit.

  24

  THE HOUSE SLUMBERED around him, but Charlie was twitchy. Should he notify everyone now, or wait for the DNA results to come in?

  The twitches won. Still framing his approach, he called Liam, who headed him off, saying, ‘Are you okay? Emma rang me last night; I was going to call you later today. Are you home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘A bit battered and bruised,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Want me to come down? Run errands?’

  ‘Em’s still here. I’m fine. Or not fine: Liam, I’ve just had the police here. They collected a DNA sample from me.’

  Liam absorbed that. ‘It’s Mum, and they need to be sure,’ he said.

  ‘They think it might be Mum.’

  ‘It’s her,’ Liam said on a savage note. ‘How did she die?’

  ‘Head injuries. Same as to the other one, the boy.’

  ‘Will they want a sample from me?’

  ‘Unless my sample proves I’m adopted, I doubt it.’

  They were silent until Liam said, gentler now: ‘I remember the day you were born.’

  He’d have been five years old, Charlie thought—but who would have taken him to the hospital? ‘I was cute, right?’

  ‘In a damp, red-faced way.’

  More silence. Charlie looked through the window at the garden table and saw again how warped the boards were when viewed side-on. One day he might do something about it. Or not. The wood was grey with age. Sun-warmed now. And a blackbird landed and hop-pecked around the surface, hopeful of lingering crumbs.

  Liam broke into his thoughts. ‘Grandma looked after me while Mum was in hospital. I don’t remember where Dad was. Work, presumably, like always.’

  Charlie didn’t want to get into it. ‘Anyway, just thought I’d let you know. I suppose I’m saying, expect the worst.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been expecting the worst for a long time now. I saw his car there. He did it.’

  Charlie wondered if he’d misheard. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Dad’s car. I saw it.’

  ‘What are you on about? When?’

  ‘The day Mum went missing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because you were so fired up about her lodger.’

  ‘Yeah, until I found out he was in jail that day. What do you mean, you saw Dad’s car? Did you see him?’

  ‘Pay attention. I drove to Dad’s, loaded the mower, and was on the way to do Mum’s lawn when I saw Dad’s car. He was coming from Swanage and turned onto Balinoe Road before I reached the intersection.’

  Charlie was rattled. ‘The day Mum went missing?’

  ‘Yes. Early to mid-afternoon from memory.’

  ‘Why weren’t you at work?’

  ‘Still on holidays—we started a week later than the state schools.’

  One of the perks of teaching at a private school. ‘But Dad would have been at work.’

  Liam snorted. ‘So he kept saying. Some security van hijack. But he worked solo that
day. Not much of an alibi.’

  A familiar sensation rose in Charlie: frustration, panic, inability to draw enough air in. Asthma brought on by stress, the family doctor had said when he was a kid. There was a bit of stress in the family back then. A lot of asthma attacks. He slowed and deepened his breathing. ‘Plenty of cars like Dad’s on the road. Was it him at the wheel?’

  When no reply came, Charlie snorted inwardly: That’s what I thought.

  And then Liam said, ‘Look, let’s not fight,’ and at once the bands loosened, Charlie’s breathing eased.

  ‘Okay.’

  The pause was uncomfortable until Liam said, ‘Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the second body is Mum’s, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘They were killed in the same way, probably at the same time, and buried in the same grave.’

  Charlie knew where this was going. My brother’s channelling McGuire, he thought. ‘So?’

  ‘So whoever did it then went on to stage one death as a drowning and the other as a possible abduction. Who would think like that? A cop.’

  Charlie was clenching the phone. ‘It always comes back to Dad with you, and I’m sick of it.’

  Liam said nothing, a silence that presaged another fight. Charlie took a shuddering breath. ‘Look, Liam, I’ll try to meet you halfway. Consider this: if it was Dad, how did he get home again?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Mum’s car was found in the middle of nowhere. If Dad drove it there, how did he get home again?’

  Liam digested that. ‘He had help.’

  ‘Like who? Fay? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, you raise a good point—either he was picked up by someone or he had his bike in the boot.’

  Their father, the cyclist.

  ‘A bloody long way to ride,’ grumbled Charlie. ‘And how could he be off the radar for so many hours? He was running a major case. Someone at work would have wondered where he was.’

  ‘He was pretty senior, not some junior constable you’d need to keep tabs on.’

  ‘But why hurt Mum?’ Charlie said, unable to say kill.

  ‘Wounded pride,’ said Liam promptly. ‘Nobody leaves Rhys Deravin.’

  ‘He was never like that, and you know it.’

  ‘Okay, she was going to get half of everything in the divorce. The house had to be sold, and that was really getting to him.’