The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s divorce law, Char—’

  ‘I mean, did he say he was upset about having to sell the house?’

  ‘Stands to reason.’

  Charlie thought Liam was probably right, but said, ‘You weren’t around back then, remember. You’d stopped having anything to do with us.’

  ‘But not with Mum.’

  ‘Did she talk much to you?’ Charlie needed to know more, and Liam seemed less inclined to be combative now.

  After a pause Liam said, ‘Apparently Dad was trying to find a way to keep the house. Buy her out, for example.’ ‘There you go. They were being civilised about it.’

  A kind of silence from Liam. It said: Except Dad got impatient.

  Move right along, Charlie told himself. ‘What do I tell Dad? Do I tell Dad?’

  ‘At least wait until you know for sure,’ Liam said. He paused. ‘Fay sent me some WhatsApp photos the other day.’

  Charlie was surprised. ‘Fay did?’

  ‘She’s always stayed in touch. Not often. My birthday, things like that. Messages from Dad.’

  ‘Liam, they care about you.’

  Liam said a mild ‘Fuck off.’

  They kicked that around silently until Liam said, ‘If the DNA results prove it’s Mum, the police are going to question Dad when he gets home—maybe even arrest him.’

  Charlie was frustrated again. ‘What I want to know is, how come no one’s looking at other people in Mum’s life?’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Was she seeing someone, for example.’

  The notion offended Liam. ‘She’d barely left Dad.’

  Charlie felt disgruntled. ‘I tracked down Shane Lambert the other day.’

  Liam took a moment to process the name. ‘Her lodger? Wasn’t he in jail?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What, you’re thinking he had a friend kill her? Because he got kicked out?’

  ‘In my world,’ Charlie said, ‘five bucks is motive enough.’

  ‘Oh, your world,’ Liam said; the old nastiness between them.

  ‘Okay, how about this: can you honestly, hand over heart, see Dad killing a kid?’

  He waited. Liam said, ‘Maybe if he was desperate enough.’

  Charlie was fed up with his brother. He said, ‘Anyway, I thought I’d let you know,’ and finished the call.

  That afternoon he went against Liam’s advice and alerted Rhys and Fay, who had just returned to the ship from a bus tour of Kagoshima. His father, inept with any IT software and hardware, filled the Skype screen with his nostrils and said, ‘Sorry you’re bearing the brunt of all this, Charlie.’

  ‘Dad, not so close. And don’t sit with the porthole behind you.’

  Rhys looked taken aback, then he was struck by a tsunami, the cabin tilting, his face wrenched violently from view. His hoary old toes filled the screen, the carpet, Fay’s elegant feet, until it all settled down and his father’s face reappeared, unreadable in shadow. ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Much,’ lied Charlie.

  Suddenly Fay was there, her face in close-up. ‘Charlie, your face is all bruised.’

  ‘Fell off my bike.’

  ‘You poor thing.’

  She retreated and Rhys was there again, one side of his face queerly half-lit, the other the dark side of the moon, with one eye gleaming, doubting, disbelieving. ‘Do you know how she died?’

  ‘If it is her? Head trauma, same as the boy.’

  ‘Any weapon found?’

  ‘Don’t know, Dad.’

  ‘Buried one under the other?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll need a funeral,’ Rhys said worriedly. ‘We don’t get back until mid-February.’

  ‘Dad, it could be weeks, months, before they release the body,’ Charlie said.

  And Rhys shook his head, not knowing what to say, until Fay—subtle, perceptive—cut in with a few traveller’s tales to make them all laugh.

  25

  NEXT DAY, IMPATIENT to visit Anna in hospital, Charlie drove his daughter home to the townhouse she shared with Jess in Coburg, near the Merri Creek. Here they had on the doorstep one of those conversations: the child concerned for the parent, the parent for the child. In her shorts, T-shirt and sandals, an old Country Road cloth bag hanging from one shoulder, Emma said, ‘I’m worried about you.’

  Charlie kissed her cheek then gestured at his Skoda, parked at the kerb. ‘Did I veer off the freeway? Cause a pile-up? Embarrass my fellow road users? I’ll be fine.’

  ‘There is a phenomenon known as a relapse, Dad.’

  ‘I’ll relapse when I get home this afternoon.’

  She kissed him. ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Minor relapse?’

  ‘Cured by a glass of red.’

  She frowned. ‘Should you be drinking?’

  ‘One glass,’ Charlie said. ‘Meanwhile, I want you to be careful. When’s Mum home?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Charlie looked up and down the street for young footballers waiting in old 4WDs. Muggers. Rapists. He saw only a guy who couldn’t decide if he was a hipster or a contestant on Farmer Wants a Wife. ‘Maybe stay with a friend tonight?’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Dad.’

  ‘Be careful who you open the door to.’

  ‘You be careful on the roads.’

  A hug and a kiss and Charlie returned to the car, feeling Emma’s gaze all the way. Both of them worried. Unable to do anything about it.

  Twenty minutes later he was at the Austin hospital, hesitating with short-stemmed roses in Anna’s doorway. Flowers everywhere; the sister, Andrea, seated beside the bed; Anna with a bruised and swollen face, plastered right leg and bandaged left wrist. He felt his eyes fill and swiped at them. ‘Thought you’d be hooked to machines, braced for take-off.’

  Anna grinned to see him there. ‘What you see is what you get.’ She beckoned with her good arm. ‘Come here.’

  The sister scooted out of the way, took his roses adroitly, and now there was only Anna’s face tilting to him. He leaned in gingerly; her lips moved dryly over his.

  Behind them a voice: ‘I’ll grab a coffee and leave you two to get on with it.’

  Charlie turned, straightening his back with a few creaks and ticks. The roses were clumped in a drinking glass and Andrea was throwing him a grin as she gathered her bag and twinkled her fingers goodbye.

  Good-looking women in this family, Charlie thought, returning his attention to Anna. Her poor face: the gritty ravages of pebbles and asphalt, and slightly misshapen. He felt the full force of his guilt. ‘Anna, I should’ve put a bomb under someone as soon as you told me about the graffiti on your door. It might have—’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I should have paid more attention.’

  She grabbed his hand and tugged until he was seated on the edge of the bed. ‘Don’t.’

  But he’d run out of steam anyway. ‘Okay. How are the aches and pains?’

  ‘I do get reminded of them from time to time,’ she said. Then, peering at him, a twist of affinity on her face: ‘What about you? That’s quite a graze.’

  Charlie’s hand went to his temple. ‘Could have been worse.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  They both thought about that, but Charlie, at a loss, looked away first. He was in a hospital room, that was about all you could say about his surroundings. The sounds and the smells and the thrum of low-level anxiety.

  He caught Anna looking at him. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘and I want you to stop it. He went after both of us. He was going to hurt us sometime or other, whatever we did.’

  She was probably right. A home invasion. A bull-bar nudge on the freeway. A bullet through a window.

  ‘Still.’

  ‘I’m alive, you’re alive,’ she said.

  Charlie accepted that. He found that he was holding her right hand. ‘I’m told you saw him?’

  Sh
e nodded. ‘When he hit you, I turned around and got a glimpse before he hit me.’

  ‘And you recognised him.’

  ‘From the trial. He was a character witness,’ Anna said. ‘A teammate.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head; pain hit. ‘Ouch. Remind me not to do that again.’

  They sat there, her warm hand in his. She dozed. His mind drifted.

  She stirred and her voice came drowsily. ‘Did you have concussion?’

  Charlie blinked. ‘No, but they had to monitor me.’

  ‘Your friend Mark was worried about it, but he didn’t want to move you.’

  She’s talking about the scene immediately after the accident, he thought. ‘You talked to him?’

  ‘He sat with me until the ambulance came. You weren’t moving and I wanted to hold you, but I couldn’t stand or even crawl.’ She paused. ‘Mark checked you over then sat with me and held my hand and talked to me. It was…I don’t know, there was something lovely about it.’

  Charlie nodded, trying to reckon that with the Valente of his childhood. The uncompromising character who had always pushed him, who had never let him get away with half-measures. A stern father, really. Stern with me, stern with my actual father. A man who holds a woman’s hand until the ambulance gets there.

  ‘Complex guy.’

  Anna looked at Charlie, wanting more.

  ‘He’s kind of a friend of the family.’

  ‘Lucky he was there.’

  Charlie needed to think about that. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He dropped in to see me yesterday.’

  ‘Really?’ Another thing to think about.

  The afternoon passed. Anna’s brother and his wife visited, twin daughters racing to their aunt’s side, riven with drama, trailed by a small boy, shyly smiling. Anna catered to her nieces in a jolly, practical way but clearly felt something deeper for her nephew. Charlie wondered, is this what family life is like? There were fault lines in his own, going back twenty years.

  Then her parents arrived with a forcefield of love that drove Charlie to a corner of the room before they brought him back in with their curiosity about the man in their daughter’s life.

  He was there, and that meant he must be important to her. If she liked him, so would they—unless or until he proved himself unworthy of their regard. Charlie felt dazed. All the shit I’ve seen over the years, he thought. You forget about simple goodness.

  Eventually, alone with her again, he told her about the second set of remains, the DNA test.

  ‘Oh, Charlie.’ Puzzled, she shifted in the bed. He almost heard her bones scrape. ‘Did she know the boy?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘So how come they were found together? Why were they killed? Why there?’

  ‘You sure you’re not a cop?’

  She tried a smile on him, then flopped back on her pillow. ‘Have you told your father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘He seemed bewildered.’

  ‘When’s he due home?’

  ‘Couple of weeks.’

  A voice from the doorway said, ‘Miss Picard? If we could have another quick word?’

  Charlie turned: Grieve and Ransome from the Major Collision Unit. ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘It’s okay, Charlie,’ Anna said, slipping her hand from his, pushing herself upright.

  Grieve stepped into the room. ‘Mr Deravin, I need to talk to Miss Picard alone,’ she said, a hint of polite apology in her voice. ‘Just to keep things simple.’

  ‘And uncontaminated,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll grab a coffee.’

  ‘We won’t be long,’ Grieve said.

  Charlie stepped into the corridor and realised he was starving. Finding the cafeteria, he scoffed down coffee and a chocolate muffin as he paged through an abandoned Herald Sun, which managed to be at once overexcited, salacious and sombre about the second set of remains found in Swanage, without saying anything new. Halfway through the crossword, he looked up and saw Grieve and Ransome cross the foyer and leave by the front door.

  He found Anna with her eyes closed. In repose, her poor face showed not freedom from strain or pain but a blade twisting. He settled gently into the chair beside the bed—wanting to take her hand, unwilling to disturb her.

  She opened her eyes and smiled as if he’d come to save her. ‘Hello.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘To show me pictures.’

  ‘Didn’t they already do that?’

  She shrugged and clearly that was a mistake. Her eyes scrunched in pain; glistened when she opened them. ‘I have no idea what’s going on. They said they needed to be sure.’

  ‘The same photos or a different lot?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘You identified the driver again?’

  She was frustrated. ‘I did, and they said I must be mistaken.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They said he has an alibi; I must’ve seen someone else.’

  26

  TWO DAYS LATER, early light, the police were on Charlie’s doorstep. Uniformed search officers, forensic technicians in oversuits and Bekker and McGuire, the latter smirking as she shoved a warrant into his hands.

  ‘Searching for what?’

  McGuire ignored the question. Turned to the search team and issued commands. ‘House and shed, you know the drill.’

  Charlie turned to Bekker for answers. ‘Search for what? And why forensics? What forensics?’

  Bekker opened her mouth to reply but McGuire muscled in. ‘I’ll ask you to step aside, Mr Deravin, and let my officers go about their duties.’

  ‘You really love this, don’t you?’ Charlie said. But he stepped aside and, as the search team filed past him into the house, he cast a last glance out at the street: police vehicles; neighbours gathering and getting an eyeful. He waved to Mrs Ehrlich, who returned the wave with a grimace of sympathy.

  The morning was windless again, full of a thin, curative haze. Charlie breathed it in, face tilted to the sky, eyes closed.

  Bekker touched him on the shoulder. ‘Walk with me.’

  Not quite an order, but she expected obedience. Charlie slipped his feet into his beach Crocs and walked beside her down Tidepool Street to the path through the tea-trees. She rolled her shoulders as she walked; rolled her neck; took deep breaths. ‘Fresh air,’ she said. ‘I really needed this.’

  She wasn’t his ally, exactly. A fair woman burdened—by life, the job, maybe simply this case. Then she was skipping ahead of him, down the steps, the sea air working on her soul, a woman in her fifties who spent all her hours at a desk or in a car. He saw her slip off her shoes at the bottom, tuck them behind a scrubby dune bush, stride out onto the beach and inhale again, her face greeting the boundless sea and sky. She even curled her toes in the sand.

  Charlie was disarmed—as far as it went. Joining her, he said, ‘The DNA has come back? It’s my mother?’

  She gave a little wake-up shudder. Resurfacing, the public world replacing the private. ‘Sorry, Charlie. Yes, it is.’

  ‘Can I ask why you need to search my place?’

  ‘Walk with me,’ she said again.

  She wheeled to her right and headed in the direction of Point Leo. The sand was firm, the tide halfway on the turn, and people were swimming. She halted abruptly. ‘Gets around, doesn’t he? Mark Valente again.’

  Valente had been chopping through the water. He stopped to adjust his goggles, stared at Charlie and Bekker. ‘I reckon you two should catch up,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Bekker said. She set off again.

  Charlie kept pace with her. Some people were fast walkers, others favoured something closer to ambling; a smaller sample—Anna tended to do it—would keep veering into you. Bekker liked to stride.

  ‘I repeat, what are you looking for?’

  ‘Think about it, Charlie. Your dad is a suspect and—’

>   ‘He’s always been a suspect. He was questioned and cleared back then but the stink never left him.’

  ‘…he’s a suspect and there might be evidence of some kind.’

  ‘He was cleared.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t cleared, not exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m telling you this because I don’t want you playing detective with only half the facts. Better still, don’t play detective at all, understood?’

  Charlie said nothing.

  ‘I mean it, Charlie. Let us do our jobs. We have been re-interviewing everyone, believe it or not—including Mr Lambert, who was in jail the day of the murders and has nothing to add—and wherever we go, you’ve been there, too. Or you’ve come along after us. It has to stop. People are getting cranky.’

  ‘Like who? I haven’t…’

  Bekker scowled. ‘To continue. Your father’s alibi was… it wasn’t solid. He said he spent his entire shift running down leads on an armoured car hijack, but it turns out he was by himself most of the day.’ She paused. ‘He was a man with powerful friends, Charlie.’

  Charlie knew full well that an experienced cop like Fran Bekker would never reveal her thinking or investigative findings to anyone as involved as he was in one of her cases. She’s hoping I’ve been harbouring doubts all this time, he thought. Hoping if she gives me titbits, I’ll repay her with gold.

  Charlie walked on glumly. ‘Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume he did it. What do you expect to find after twenty years?’

  ‘Legal and financial documents that might speak to motive. Photos, old diaries, letters…’

  ‘But forensics? Come on.’

  Bekker gave him a look and Charlie knew he was being naive. What if his mother had been killed at Tidepool Street and transported to the house site in Swanage? He visualised the forensic team quartering the house metre by metre, looking for blood traces on the carpets, floorboards and walls. Blood spots; blood pools; blood that had been mopped and sponged. But everyone steps on broken glass at some point. If they find Mum’s blood, he thought, let’s hope they keep that in mind.

  ‘Be careful of tunnel vision,’ he said.

  ‘You be careful of tunnel vision,’ Bekker replied, and they walked on in silence. Gulls wheeled above the sea or bobbed in it. There had been a rising wind last night, a tidal surge, so the beach was flecked with seaweed.