The Way It Is Now

by Garry Disher

  ‘An actual apology? More than I got.’

  ‘More than I got too, really. It came across as regret. He talked about the culture of football clubs and how the original Kessler investigation could have been tighter.’

  ‘Tighter,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Tighter. He also said, wait for it: “The fact remains, Miss Picard, your actions did precipitate a mistrial.”’

  The Allardyce we know and love, thought Charlie. ‘He’s good at deflecting. Did he stay long?’

  ‘No. That was it, a kind of apology and a kind of telling-off.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Charlie eventually. ‘I’d better call my sergeant, let her know what he’s been up to.’

  ‘Don’t you dare hang up on me. You’ve not been to see me. Why is that?’

  Charlie stumbled. ‘You know, trying to keep a low profile, people hassling me.’

  ‘That’s not good enough, Charlie. We were going really well.’

  ‘I know. Look, Anna it’s…I just…’ He swallowed. ‘I don’t want to involve you in all my shit.’

  ‘I want to be involved. I love you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  What else could you say? But he felt like he was returning a favour before he was quite ready.

  ‘Then come and see me. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I’m a good listener.’

  The silence went on for too long. She said, ‘Or not,’ and cut the call.

  He paced around the room, aching everywhere. Picked up the sock. Dropped it again and called her back. ‘How about tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘I’m black and blue all over. He got a few punches in.’

  ‘Interesting you should forewarn me. Does that mean you expect post-breakup sex?’ Charlie gave a strangled laugh. She’d made a joke? ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said airily, and was gone.

  He called Sue Mead.

  ‘Are you going to report it?’

  ‘No point, sarge,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Probably wise.’ There was a pause and she added, ‘Charlie, you didn’t hurt his kid, did you?’

  ‘Fuck you, sergeant,’ Charlie said.

  She called him back half-a-dozen times. Charlie stared at his phone, watching the notifications come up on the screen. He felt small, sulky. Dr Fiske would have a field day.

  Finally he answered. They got their apologies out of the way. Scant comfort in that, though.

  36

  IF HE WAS going up to the city, he might as well see everyone.

  Emma first. Vast carparks ringed the LaTrobe campus and most were empty this early in the university year. He slotted the Skoda under a slender gumtree near the sports centre and set off for the main library. He saw only a handful of staff and students—not that he could tell them apart, necessarily. Youngish, scruffy-chic, they ambled along, glued to their screens or sprawled on the grass, but here and there he saw family units of a self-conscious fresher clutching enrolment forms, trailed by stunned parents neat as pins and sulky younger siblings. Charlie didn’t know what any of these people made of him—if anything. But he quite enjoyed striding the paths and crossing the footbridge as if he had a brain and belonged in the place.

  He reached the Agora and texted his daughter: Here.

  She replied: Info desk.

  He entered the library and saw her break away from a cluster of kids and skip across the carpet towards him, arms as wide as the world. That gave him a buzz and, in the milliseconds before the collision, he took her in: a ribbon of movement, swinging yellow hair, lithe and brown in shorts, sandals and a green T-shirt. The Deravin look, he thought, as she wrapped herself around him.

  ‘Daddyo.’

  ‘Daughter of mine.’

  ‘I’ve got twenty minutes,’ she said, leading him to a café in the corner of the library’s ground floor. Twenty minutes’ break from shelving, processing and serving at the help desk, five mornings a week. That would drop to three when lectures started.

  Charlie fetched coffees and pastries and was settling them on the table when she asked, ‘How’s Grandpa doing?’

  ‘Not good. It’s knocked him around.’

  ‘Fay?’

  ‘Not as bad.’

  ‘Poor Grandpa.’ She glanced past Charlie worriedly, as if looking for a link between her world and her grandfather’s. ‘I have Chinese friends who went home before

  Christmas and now they might have to stay there.’

  This place is usually thronging with overseas students, Charlie thought. He looked around him; out at the Agora. ‘That’s rough.’

  She shrugged and he sensed that her observation had dimensions he hadn’t fathomed. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘they’ll be home in a week or so, but it would really cheer them up if you’d Skype with them.’

  ‘I will,’ Emma said. She paused. ‘Mum said the police will want to talk to Grandpa now.’

  Charlie sighed. ‘Unfortunately.’

  He watched his daughter play with her coffee mug. ‘Dad, what was Grandma like?’

  She’d been asking this since her early teens. When she was little, Fay had, in effect, been her paternal grandmother. Then, while still acknowledging that connection, she’d become curious about the woman who had disappeared when she was a baby. The mystery touched her, the horror. And Charlie had always tried to portray the Rose Deravin who was his mother, not the Rose Deravin who was the wife of Rhys. That had seemed to satisfy Emma, but he suspected that a different need drove her now. Her grandmother had been murdered; her grandfather might have done it.

  So he didn’t know how to answer this time. He faltered as he began. ‘She had this…she was always calm and gentle, always held something in reserve. It was a pretty rowdy crowd at the beach back then, mainly Grandpa’s police friends, and she was…not standoffish, but she only took part on her terms. It seemed to bother some of the others.’ ‘The other wives?’

  Charlie looked appreciatively at his daughter. ‘You’re not so dumb.’

  Emma hunched over, as if weighed down by the book-crammed floors above her. ‘Sometimes I wonder.’

  Charlie patted her hand. ‘Take it from me. Anyway, Mum was her own person. Not a snob, but she didn’t need any of the others. Then I’m sorry to say that Grandpa cheated on her, and I think she was devastated.’ He paused. ‘I know she was.’

  ‘Did he cheat with others,’ said Emma, ‘or only with Fay?’ She flapped her hands. ‘Sorry, I’m not judging her, you know how much I love her. But, you know…’

  Charlie did. ‘I don’t think he had other affairs. I think he and Mum were drifting apart. But it still hit her hard.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Emma said, just then noticing pastry flecks on her T-shirt and swiping at them. ‘Wouldn’t Grandma have wanted to hurt Grandpa and not the other way around? They were getting a divorce; he was getting the other woman. Why would he want to kill her?’ She paused. ‘Hypothetically.’

  ‘We need you on the defence team,’ Charlie said. ‘But actually you know I can’t see either of them wanting to hurt the other.’

  Emma was sad. ‘The whole thing’s really strange. Two bodies? What’s that about?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Charlie squeezed her hand. ‘Wish I knew.’

  Just then her phone pinged, and she read the message with a strange, secret, buoyant smile. A new boyfriend, he thought. Or an established one that I’ll be the last to know about. And his phone pinged, and it was Anna: ETA?

  He texted back 12.30, and saw that Emma was texting too, her thumbs a blur. A certain kind of togetherness, he thought: father and daughter messaging their lovers at the same time.

  He kissed her goodbye, watched her skip back to work at the help desk, and walked to his car. Ten minutes to Ivanhoe, according to Google Maps, and he set out, feeling antsy: Anna had sent a follow-up message: her parents were out for the afternoon, and he should come around to the back door, which would be open. He didn’t like that. She was still a target.

  He sai
d as much when he found her in the sunroom and leaned in to kiss her.

  She wasn’t fussed. ‘Nitro will sort them out.’

  Charlie cast the labrador a dubious look. ‘Slobber them to death.’

  ‘Relax. We left the door unlocked because you were coming. Otherwise it’s always kept locked if I’m here alone.’

  ‘Here alone,’ said Charlie and the knots in him didn’t ease.

  ‘Honestly, relax. I see you brought lunch.’

  He waggled the delicatessen bag. ‘Cheese, olives, salami, bread, pâté.’

  ‘Major food groups.’

  Charlie placed a 1950s heirloom traymobile next to her hip then walked through to the kitchen and arranged everything on small plates, which he took, with a water jug and glasses, back to the sunroom. Then he sat, the traymobile between them, and he looked at Anna and she was looking at him.

  ‘The very definition of a meaningful look,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry I was avoiding you.’

  She reached across to take his hand. ‘I know.’

  He’d felt inert and aimless, he told her. ‘Like I’m playing a waiting game.’

  Faint exasperation threaded through her. ‘Yes, you’re waiting, but you’ve also been doing things. Talking to people, gathering information, theorising…It will all help.’

  ‘Sure,’ Charlie said, but dejectedly, as if her words hadn’t registered. ‘I guess I’m a bit fed up with myself.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m stuck here like a lump, I’m bored, my parents are driving me bonkers. But, you know, life goes on…’

  A cliché; but the sentiment was sincere. Charlie shook himself. Leaned in and nuzzled her ear. ‘Sorry.’

  She said, ‘I’m sorry, too. But I shouldn’t complain.’

  He held her hand now. ‘I’ll mention your memorial service idea when I see Liam later.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You’ll come, won’t you?’

  She tocked her knuckles against her plaster cast. ‘Funeral chic. But no, Charlie, I won’t. For a start I don’t want to be a hassle—a wheelchair; maybe crutches—but also it wouldn’t be right, it’s your show, your family, whom I haven’t met.’ She watched him for a moment. ‘Yet. And people are going to be eyeing you like a hawk, meaning me as well, and I don’t know if either of us wants that level of scrutiny.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  ‘Take me to bed.’

  Charlie opened and closed his mouth uselessly. ‘Er…’

  ‘Come on—we’ve got two hours before they’re back. We’ll manage.’

  Three-thirty now, Charlie grinning to himself as he drove to Northcote, reminded irresistibly of his late adolescence, a few hours snatched with a girlfriend while her parents were out. He was an adult—an unsatisfactory one, probably—but fuck it, life could be a tonic sometimes.

  Liam and Ryan showed him to a metal chair at a metal table under an umbrella tree in the backyard, then joined him with cheeses on a plate and bottles of micro-brewery beer. Typically it was Ryan who twigged. ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.’

  ‘What?’ Charlie shut down his face. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘What did she think of your face? You look like you’ve been used as a punching bag.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Charlie said, but he could feel Liam watching with an imperfect impression of perfect ease, waiting for him to explain himself.

  He tried. ‘Just a minor difference of opinion.’

  Liam sniffed. Ryan touched his arm lightly. ‘How’s the lovely Emma? You saw her, right?’

  ‘She’s fine, sends her love.’

  And they sat like that for a while. Charlie felt resentment stir in him: the leafiness of the yard, tucked away from the world; the fancy label on the beer; Liam’s snootiness and Ryan’s go-betweening. He struggled against it. ‘A friend of mine suggested maybe a memorial service for Mum. We can still have a funeral,’ he added, ‘but small and private. A memorial service would be more of a celebration.’

  He was watching Liam. Liam gave the merest nod. Encouraged, he turned to Ryan, who said, ‘It’s a great idea.’ Darting a look at Liam, he added, ‘We haven’t spoken to Fay for a few days. Do they have a return date yet?’

  ‘No. Dad’s still in hospital.’

  Ryan tipped his bottle, watching Charlie. He sipped; set the bottle down again. ‘His underlying health issues.’

  Not for the first time, Charlie wondered if everyone knew more than he did about everything. How would Ryan know about Rhys’s health issues? ‘I’ve been googling the virus,’ he said. ‘If your health’s compromised, it can really knock you around. People have died. What if he does?’

  ‘At least he’s in hospital. Tokyo? They’ll know what they’re doing.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Anyway, he’ll need our support when he gets home. Not only his health—the Homicide Squad are standing by to have another go at him.’

  Even seated, Liam was tall and disparaging. ‘And so they should. Maybe now we’ll get some answers.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Liam,’ Charlie said. He looked to Ryan for support: Ryan stared back, not unfriendly but with an air of judgment in reserve. Maybe he was sticking with Liam on this issue.

  ‘He dishonoured our mother,’ Liam said.

  From anyone else, this would have sounded comical. Charlie heard it as a warning rattle. ‘Are you going to dob him in?’

  Liam looked at him with distaste. ‘Dob him in?’

  ‘Tell them you saw his car.’

  ‘No. What do you take me for?’

  Charlie could feel Ryan. He chanced a quick look and saw Ryan give a little jerk of the head.

  ‘Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t.’

  Liam nodded, but his look said he thought Charlie’s apology makeshift and unsatisfactory. He sipped his beer, placed the bottle on the table, reclined in an attitude of certainty. A good-looking guy. Ryan liked to say that Liam was the aesthete, he was the rough trade. Just then Liam looked to Charlie exactly like their father when they were kids: dark, suave, insultingly courteous.

  So he stood; jangled his car keys. ‘Thanks for the beer. I’d better go. Traffic…’

  Ryan stood, stepped up and hugged him. ‘Drive safely. Thanks for calling in.’

  Liam stood, reaching out an arm—and Charlie’s phone rang. Fumbling it from his pocket, he saw the expression on Liam’s face and felt an old sensation creep in: his brother the disapprover, disapproval being essential to his sense of who he was. ‘Sorry, I need to take this.’

  The caller was Sue Mead. He turned his back on the two men. ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Charlie, where are you?’

  ‘Northcote, just leaving my brother’s place. Why?’

  ‘Thought I’d better warn you. Allardyce could be on the warpath. His son went into a coma a couple of hours ago, and he went storming out of here.’

  37

  CHARLIE STARTED THE car, then froze. Where did he think he was going? He felt an undirected impulse to move, that’s all. Who would need him? Who did he love the most? He sat there, engine running, and tried wearing Allardyce’s grief as if it were an old coat. What the man was feeling, who the man would want to hurt…

  Coldness threaded through him, and he called Mrs Ehrlich first; asked her to look for an unfamiliar car in his driveway or on Tidepool Street. ‘In particular, a maroon Pajero.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what that was, but there’s nothing here, Charlie.’

  ‘Call me if one does show,’ he said, going on to describe Allardyce.

  ‘I will.’

  Anna sounded warm, a huskiness in her throat, an echo of their afternoon and he hated to cut across that. ‘Anna, listen. Allardyce might come after you. His son just went into a coma.’

  A pause. ‘Oh. How awful for him.’

  Charlie wanted to scream. ‘I know, but please, if he turns up, don’t let him in.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Are your
parents home yet?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be fine, Charlie.’

  ‘If he shows up, call triple zero.’

  ‘That sounds unnecessary.’

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Okay, all right.’ Her sharpness lingered when he broke off to call Emma.

  He counted the rings—ten—and then heard her voice asking him to leave a message. He stumbled through it, trying to sound unconcerned: ‘Only me. Look, nothing to worry about, but to be on the safe side, could you not go home for the next few hours? Go to a friend’s. Or stay at uni. Or if you’re out jogging, maybe stop somewhere for a coffee? In any case, call me back.’

  And he texted her, a short version, as dread elbowed in. She’s at home, he thought. Allardyce has hurt her and left her lying on the floor.

  Who next? Jess.

  A planner with Moreland Council, she answered distractedly. Hearing her interrupted-in-the-middle-of-something voice was sufficient to bring up his defences. ‘Sorry to call you at work, but do you know where Em is?’

  She was silent and he read a trace of judgment in it. Eventually: ‘It’s four-fifteen. She’s due to start work at five, so she should still be at home. She’s probably plugged in.’

  ‘What work?’

  Terse now, Jess said, ‘The Hive.’

  A community garden-cum-environment park on Merri Creek. Emma volunteered there for an hour a couple of times a week, generally rotating between the grocery, the plant nursery and the café; sometimes digging, weeding or watering the herb and vegetable plots.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What’s going on? Something’s got you worked up.’

  He told her the gist, managing to sound at once agitated and offhand.

  ‘This man blames you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Charlie amended that: ‘Possibly.’

  He waited for her response. Back when they were married, Jess had been on the receiving end of threats and intimidation aimed at him. Landline hang-ups in the small hours. Tyres slashed. A note on her windscreen outside netball training one evening: Your kid looks cute in her little skirt.

  ‘He blames you enough to hurt Emma?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’ll order a car to go around there.’