The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

‘I know.’

  ‘Ride with me.’

  Ride with me, walk with me, Charlie thought. I’m a biddable guy, overlooked and ignored, a man without agency. He rode with Valente all the way back to Menlo Beach.

  At Tidepool Street, Valente leaned his bike against the driveway fence and wheeled the offending rust-bucket into the shadowed reaches of the carport while Charlie, feeling railroaded, unlocked the sliding door and leaned into the fridge. Valente wanted a light beer. Charlie found one, a Boags nestling in the door next to some out-of-date orange juice. A full-strength beer for himself; cheese, olives, crackers.

  He pulled out a tray for the snacks and found it wasn’t just any old tray, it was one that took him back to a day before it all went wrong, Rhys returning from Tasmania with an extradited prisoner and a gift for his wife. A Huon pine tray. Its paleness and smoothness; its soft odour.

  Get a grip. Surely he could deal with Mark Valente for an hour. The bike was probably already upended, ready to be stripped down, Valente ready to show Charlie how it was done. With the tray unwieldy in his right hand, he opened the sliding door with his left, stepped out onto the veranda and the podcast twins were there.

  ‘Charlie,’ said Ashleigh Deamer, ‘we were sorry to hear about your mother.’

  Why was she the talker of the two? Nadal always a step behind her with his slick face on—as if he had plenty to say. Charlie looked past them at the street. Their yellow Beetle was partly obscured by the banksias. The tray grew heavy in his hand; he set it down on the lid of the footlocker and looked up again. Deamer and Nadal stood where the lawn met a low retaining wall of redgum sleepers and so were looking down at Charlie and he hated that.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To pay our respects,’ Deamer said.

  Charlie glanced at Nadal, who didn’t confirm but stared back, slim and at ease in cargo pants and T-shirt. Deamer wore baggy shorts, strappy sandals and a boat-neck shirt, baring a tanned shoulder. She’d cut her hair, a tousled look, faintly post-sexual, and Charlie saw again the pair’s gorgeousness.

  He returned his attention to Nadal and his sleepy eyes. ‘You didn’t know my mother and you don’t know me. Why pay respects?’

  ‘May we have a quick word?’ Deamer asked, stepping blithely down onto the veranda, tendons flexing in her legs. Nadal joined her and Charlie was trapped.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you want, not interested in fact, and I’m entertaining a friend.’

  A hunter’s light in them now. They were too close, peering past his shoulder, hankering for a glimpse of Charlie’s friend inside the house.

  ‘Just a quick word,’ Deamer said. She bared her dazzling teeth.

  ‘As I said, I—’

  ‘Hate to say this, but are they treating your father as a suspect?’

  ‘Suspect for what?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ scoffed Nadal.

  Deamer touched her boyfriend’s arm—she knew he’d subside—and turned again to Charlie, saying, ‘We believe there was a lot of behind-the-scenes mopping up going on around the time your mother was murdered. Can you shed any light on that?’

  ‘Not interested,’ Charlie said, shunning them, reaching to pick up the tray.

  With his back turned briefly, he didn’t at first register the strange, diffuse prickling on his bare legs and arms as water droplets. Or why Deamer was shrieking, Nadal swearing.

  He turned. Valente was spraying them with the garden hose, the fingers of one hand on the nozzle, the other hand resting casually in his pocket. Charlie knew that evil old grin and dodged as Valente flicked his wrist, sending another loop of water, messing with Deamer and Nadal, soaking their shirts and shorts, hosing their dignity.

  He stopped firing; pretended to blow away the gun smoke.

  ‘That counts as assault,’ Deamer said, calm now.

  ‘So report me,’ Valente said. He thought he was comical as he feinted with the hose again.

  ‘You old shit,’ snarled Nadal. ‘Everything’s going to come out, you know.’

  ‘Go your hardest.’

  When they were gone, Valente said, ‘Let’s sink those beers, young Charles.’

  ‘Mark, what’s going on?’

  ‘They’re digging up dirt. Weren’t you listening?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About? Your mother. That old heartache.’

  34

  WHEN VALENTE HAD GONE home, Charlie angled the garden table umbrella so that his phone was shaded and put in a Skype call to Rhys and Fay.

  Fay’s face appeared, lit by the porthole. Even with the distortions of distance and technology, she looked tense, her hair limp, bags under her eyes as if she’d been fretting.

  ‘Your Dad’s just been taken to the mainland with a handful of others. To hospital.’

  Charlie blinked. ‘His heart?’

  ‘They think it’s the virus that’s been in the news.’

  To Charlie the virus was a story that he glimpsed on TV. Deaths in China, an elderly Chinese man in France. Face masks in the streets. Maybe he should start paying attention.

  ‘A Japanese hospital,’ he said, with more reassurance than he felt, ‘he’ll be in good hands.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘How did he get it?’

  She shrugged. ‘Three thousand passengers, Charlie. From all over. And we’ve stopped at heaps of places, taken side trips by bus here and there…’

  ‘Does that mean you have it, too?’

  ‘I don’t have any symptoms, but they took a sample and I have to quarantine in my cabin until the results come in.’

  He saw her glance around the confined space, then return to the camera. ‘As you can imagine…’

  ‘Stir crazy.’

  ‘And it’s only been a couple of hours,’ she said.

  He grimaced sympathy. ‘So what are Dad’s symptoms?’

  ‘Coughing, aches. It was like he had the flu. He could be in hospital for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘But if the ship—’

  ‘The ship’s not going anywhere. We’re anchored offshore for the duration.’

  He made reassuring noises then said goodbye and dithered. Message Liam?

  He called. ‘Just letting you know Dad’s been taken to hospital. They think it’s that virus in the news.’

  Liam said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘Okay.’

  ‘That it?’

  ‘Well…Is he going to die?’

  ‘Don’t be a prick. Fay’s upset. I think you should call her.’

  A mistake. I implied he’s got ethical shortcomings; I dared to tell him what to do. Charlie visualised the granite set of his brother’s shoulders.

  ‘Or not,’ Charlie said. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, that’s all.’

  There was another silence. Then Liam said gruffly, the closest he’d get to appeasement: ‘How sick is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Enough to go to hospital.’

  ‘They won’t finish the cruise, surely?’

  ‘The ship’s in quarantine. They’ll fly home as soon as Dad’s allowed to travel.’

  ‘Does Fay have it?’

  ‘Maybe. She says she feels all right.’

  ‘Okay, thanks,’ Liam said, and was gone, leaving Charlie to wonder if he’d ever navigate the reefs and currents of a conversation with his brother.

  The phone rang as soon as he placed it on the kitchen bench. Anna. He hadn’t been ghosting her exactly, but he hadn’t called for a couple of days.

  ‘Hi.’

  Her brightness was forced. ‘Just wanted to hear your voice.’

  ‘Thanks, good to hear yours.’

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Missed you, too,’ Charlie said.

  ‘If you’re not doing anything, come up and see me tomorrow. Mum’s fussing is driving me up the wall.’

  ‘Actually,’ Charlie said, ‘I’ve been a bit flat out. And I just had bad news, my father’s in hospital, that virus.’

  ‘Oh, Charlie
,’ she said, her sympathy palpable. ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do, just—What’s that noise? Where are you?’

  ‘Knock on the door,’ Charlie said. ‘Speak to you later,’ he added, completing the call and crossing the room.

  And so she didn’t hear the noises that followed the knock on the door—the flurry of punches, Charlie grunting as air was driven from his lungs, Charlie stumbling back into the room, his body thumping to the floor.

  35

  HIS FIRST, FLEETING thought: a bunch of thugs was throwing punches at him. But it was only Inspector Allardyce with a full head of steam on, forcing him inside. Another punch to the stomach, his jaw, left cheek, the back of his neck, each blow a punctuation mark: ‘You. Run. My. Son. Over?’

  Then Charlie was flat on his back, on fire, and thinking he should probably roll away as Allardyce lifted his foot, ready for a piston shot at his groin. He put up his forearm: ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Eh? You go for Jake?’

  ‘Don’t.’

  He rolled away as the foot came down. Allardyce, in mid-stomp, stumbled forward, off balance and Charlie, behind him now, spun around on his lower spine, lifted both feet, slammed them into the man’s overfed rear. He watched his old boss fall to his knees, hands outstretched, making a grab at the sofa but shoving it back against the bookcase instead, revealing dustballs and a sock. ‘Huh,’ grunted Charlie. He’d thought that sock was gone for good.

  Testing every articulation of his limbs, he rolled again, onto his side; then, starting with one arm to prop up his torso, by degrees to his feet. He hurt all over, new pain upon old. He wanted to kick Allardyce again, the fat cunt.

  But he was thoroughly a policeman. He had come in as a cadet, then clawed his way up to a halfway decent detective senior constable. There had always been officers of higher rank acting like arseholes. You didn’t quibble, you didn’t defy. It was ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘Yes, ma’am’ all the way. He’d shoved Allardyce over a desk—but that was an unprecedented spurt of indignation. This…This was his inspector storming in and beating the shit out of him.

  The inspector was down among the dustballs now, wheezing in a way that seemed dangerously unhealthy. Charlie was torn—help him up, or plant a well-placed foot on the massive buttocks?

  ‘Sir?’

  Allardyce stirred, manoeuvring until he could sit with his back against the sofa, hair demoralised and legs outstretched, trousers rucked up to reveal huge white calves and sensible, mismatched business socks: small diamonds on one, larger on the other.

  He was Charlie’s inspector, and he was nothing. Charlie fetched a glass of water. Knelt to offer it. And, for a moment, thought that Allardyce wanted to slap the offending hand aside, the resentment heavy in his features.

  Allardyce took the glass. Sipped, sipped again and handed it back with a muttered ‘Thanks,’ not looking at Charlie.

  ‘Want me to help you up?’

  Allardyce was silent but for his constricted breathing.

  Charlie stood. ‘I’ll make tea. We’ll have a picnic on the floor.’

  He had the jug under the tap, skin prickling to think of Allardyce creeping in behind him, when he heard the man say, ‘Got something stronger?’

  Charlie settled the jug and turned. Allardyce hadn’t moved. ‘Sir, you’re already drunk. I’m not giving you more booze.’

  ‘Fuck you, then.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  The water began to boil. It was the noisiest jug in creation, conversation impossible, so Charlie returned to the sitting room, getting close but not too close to Allardyce. He got into his face and spoke clearly: ‘Someone else ran over your fuckwit son.’

  He knelt back on his heels; watched Allardyce. Allardyce wouldn’t look at him. His expression was the one that incited the squad to call him Dullardyce.

  ‘Look, sir, I’ve been questioned,’ Charlie said. ‘I was here on the Peninsula all day Saturday.’

  ‘You had it done.’

  ‘Like Kessler had me and Anna Picard run over, you mean?’ Charlie said.

  Allardyce gave Charlie his mulish look and, raising his voice above the sound of the jug, said, ‘Since we’re speaking of alibis, my son can also show he’s in the clear. He didn’t run you and your tart over.’

  ‘That’s it, sir—stay classy,’ Charlie said. ‘Alibied by half the club, right?’ He paused. ‘How is he, incidentally?’

  ‘What do you care?’ Allardyce said, looking away—but something in his tone indicated weary disgust and Charlie thought: He doesn’t believe his own son.

  The jug switched off. ‘How do you like your tea?’ Charlie said, returning to the kitchen.

  Hearing a grunt and a groan behind him, he chanced a quick look. Allardyce, heaving himself upright, repositioned the sofa and settled in it, his spine squashing one of the cushions. ‘Black. Strong.’

  Charlie poured, peppermint tea for himself, and returned to the sitting room. His knees when he sat were a metre from the inspector’s, but Allardyce was a spent force. ‘Sir, I didn’t knock your son over and I didn’t have it done.’

  ‘Someone did. Your girlfriend.’

  ‘She’s in a wheelchair now, and she doesn’t know those kind of people.’

  ‘So she claims.’

  Charlie froze. ‘You went to see her?’

  ‘Don’t get your panties in a twist. Her parents were there.’ Allardyce blew on his tea and sipped, an unhealthy heat in his face. Heart problem? Indigestion? Or just his shitty personality.

  The silence deepened. Charlie had no intention of breaking it. He could smell Allardyce now: perspiration, booze, aftershave and futility. ‘You okay to drive home?’

  Allardyce snarled, ‘You think we’re finished?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  Allardyce screwed up his face, as if weighing options. ‘Maybe.’

  Then, from far, far away, he muttered: ‘Kessler’s guilty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That other victim you and your girlfriend found.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Credible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Two victims,’ Allardyce said, ‘never crossed paths with each other, raped two years apart at a club event.’

  ‘I know that, sir.’

  ‘He was going places, you know?’

  He means Luke Kessler, Charlie thought. Not his kid.

  ‘He had recruiters sniffing around. The Saints, the Bulldogs.’

  ‘And that makes it okay?’

  Allardyce flushed. ‘Fuck you. The evidence wasn’t there, last year. A classic case of he-said, she-said.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true, sir. Everyone went straight down the victim-blaming route, including you. Tunnel vision. You practically told us not to look too hard.’

  ‘I object to that.’

  ‘Object away.’

  ‘Doing my job, that’s all. People lie, including so-called rape victims. You would know that if you were a halfway decent police officer.’

  Charlie drained his tea. ‘You barged into my home. You punched me several times. I can go to a police station as soon as you leave here and file a complaint. Strip off and show them the bruises. And again tomorrow, when they should be a nice, rich colour.’

  Allardyce shook his head. ‘I’m an inspector, you fool. You’re a fuck-up on suspension.’

  ‘Sir, why are you here?’

  When Allardyce finally lifted his face, it was full of nothing but confusion. ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘I didn’t hurt your son—but I’m damn sure he ran me and Anna Picard over, despite what his little pals swear to.’

  Allardyce screwed his fleshy face up again; a man in pain. ‘That club of his. They’re all…’

  Allardyce didn’t have the words, but Charlie felt able to supply some of them. ‘Woman haters,’ for example. ‘Rape apologists.’ Not to mention criminal and lost to shame.

  Char
lie watched as a succession of moods passed through Allardyce. Weepiness, sulky anger, self-castigation and finger pointing. He understood that mostly the guy felt betrayed by his son and his son’s friends. Felt that he’d betrayed himself, too. And that the need to deflect had sent him crashing in here to blame Charlie.

  He left, finally, without apologising for his actions or his son’s but with a choice parting shot: ‘Don’t go thinking I haven’t forgotten you helped fuck up a trial and assaulted me in front of everyone.’

  ‘Etched on my soul, boss.’

  ‘Prick.’

  Charlie watched the inspector climb into a maroon Pajero and tear away with a spurt of street gravel. He was tempted, just then, to report him. But the aggravation, for a start, let alone proving that Allardyce had even been to his house. A classic case of he-said, he-said. And he’d feel small.

  It paid to be safe, though. What if Allardyce gets steamed up again? What if he’s told his son’s football mates where I live? Where Anna lives? Oh, Christ.

  ‘Charlie,’ she said, her voice flat.

  ‘Look, sorry about before, I had a visitor—Inspector Allardyce. He said he went to see you.’

  ‘This afternoon. That’s partly why I called you before.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You’re always saying that. How did he find me?’

  ‘He’s a cop,’ Charlie said. Overweight, hidebound, a miserable sack of guilt, but he’d have tracked her down to her parents’ house in five minutes.

  ‘I hate this,’ she said.

  Charlie didn’t know if she meant she hated being tracked down by Allardyce or ghosted by her boyfriend. If this was their first fight, he hated it too. ‘Are you all right? Was he threatening?’

  ‘No. But it was all a bit strange,’ she said, softening a little. ‘Mum and Dad were hovering around, just in case, which seemed to bother him.’

  ‘Was he drunk?’

  ‘Yes. I could smell it on him. I think that’s partly why Mum and Dad didn’t want to leave me alone with him. Mainly he just seemed sad, and I finally persuaded them I’d be all right.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Not entirely clear. On the one hand he was sorry I got hurt, but on the other he seemed to be saying it wasn’t his son, as if he thought it probably was. Or his son’s friends, meaning Luke Kessler’s friends.’