No One Can Hear You

by Nikki Crutchley

  She threw Lillian’s notebook into the secret compartment and then wondered why. Who was she hiding it from? Who cared about the ramblings of an old lady with Alzheimer’s? Should she just give up on Lillian’s theory? Was there anything to it? Lillian might have had Alzheimer’s, but Zoe knew for sure from Alex and Dr Meade that she had more lucid moments than forgetful ones. Surely these notes weren’t all from Lillian’s imagination. Then Max Vincent’s words about Megan Harper came back to her: ‘That girl’s always in trouble. Been done for drink-driving and drugs and God knows what else.’

  Give it up, Zoe. Sherlock Holmes you ain’t.

  Chapter 17

  Zoe woke early. Insipid light crept between the gaps in her curtain. She had dreamed of Harold Paynter. He’d just fired her and told her the whole Board was against her, wanted her out. He said she was a horrible teacher and they’d make sure she never worked at any school in New Zealand again. Her heart was thumping as though it would beat right through her chest. She tried deep breathing but it didn’t get any better. She clawed at her T-shirt. It felt as though her chest was being crushed.

  God, am I having a heart attack?

  With some effort she sat up and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. More deep breaths, and her heart rate slowly returned to normal. She pulled her damp T-shirt away from her body. She knew what was happening. She hadn’t been unemployed since … never. Since entering the workforce as a teacher in 2006, she had never been without a job. If she left one job she always had another one lined up. Even overseas when she went travelling around Europe for three months, the St Clement’s job was waiting for her when she got back. The fact Lillian had left her the house didn’t help calm her. This wasn’t a panic about money, or lack of it. One thing Lillian had taught her, on purpose or not, was to look after herself. She had savings. That wasn’t the problem. The thought of being without a job left her feeling untethered. She needed to be motivated and driven, and her work gave her that. She had quit on an anger-fuelled whim. It had made her feel better for a couple of hours but since then it had been gnawing at her. She had managed to put Paynter’s email out of her head, but she had to face facts: she was at a standstill — and Zoe Haywood did not do well at standing still.

  She splashed her face with cool water in the bathroom and pulled on a pair of tights, a singlet and a pair of running shoes. Crawton was silent as she drove through the residential streets and then through town. She took the main road out to the lake where bungalows and villas gave way to lifestyle blocks and a mix of lakeside mansions and summer homes.

  At the main beach where, when she was a teen, one lone dairy, squat and whitewashed annually, stood across the road from the main beach of the lake selling ice creams to day-trippers and milk, bread and the Sunday paper to those in the holiday homes. It was now surrounded by a café, an Italian restaurant, a bakery and a bike- and kayak-hire store. No longer overpopulated in summer and abandoned in winter, Lake Waitapu had its own community. There was even a sign for a day-care centre. She drove past the main beach and picnic area, past the toilet block covered with a mural of the lake, framed by pohutukawa and ferns, while strangely yet fittingly, each corner hosted an icon of Kiwiana at its random best — a pavlova, a buzzy bee, a rugby ball and a pair of gumboots.

  At the Crawton Rowing Club there was one other car parked in the gravel driveway. She got out and looked at the lake, breathing in the cool, fresh air. Pohutukawa grew right on the lake edge, grey crooked limbs reaching out to the water: before long they would be bedecked in red flowers. Black swans and Canada geese glided in the shallows. A lone rower came towards her. He eased forward and pulled back, the muscles in his back tensing at the release. The oars pitted the water, sending out ripples on the otherwise calm lake.

  She missed rowing. She missed the early mornings when no one else was awake and having the lake to herself. She missed the pull of the water, the freeing feeling when you really got going and the boat didn’t seem to even touch the water. She ran a hand over her palm, toughened all those years ago from gripping oars.

  At the dock the rower expertly pulled himself up and out of the boat. He reached down and picked it up, casually throwing its bulk onto his shoulder. He was at least fifty metres away, but he raised an arm in greeting. Daniel Hepi.

  Zoe met him by the shed as he stored the boat. ‘Do you do it anymore?’ he asked towelling off his biceps and inclining his head towards the shed.

  ‘God, no. Not since I left high school.’

  ‘You were good, if I remember rightly.’

  Zoe ignored the compliment. ‘I didn't even realise I missed it till now.’

  Daniel locked the shed and they walked towards their cars. ‘So are you off back to —’ He laughed. ‘I have no idea where you live.’

  ‘Auckland. I don’t know. I don’t really have a plan.’ When she said the words her heart rate picked up.

  ‘What do you do there?’

  ‘I’m a teacher. Science. High school.’

  ‘Snap. I’m a PE teacher at high school here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He laughed again, showing off straight, white teeth.

  ‘I don’t know. I always thought you’d end up at the uni like your parents.’

  ‘They wish,’ he said with a smile.

  Daniel’s parents had been part of Auckland University for as long as Zoe could remember, his dad in the science faculty and his mother in the Māori and indigenous studies department.

  ‘I guess you won’t be able to take too much time off work with the kids’ exams coming up.’

  Zoe felt a stab of guilt over the students she’d left in the lurch. ‘Actually, I quit my job.’ It felt strange saying it out loud, more real. ‘I think I’m going to stay here.’

  ‘What? For good?’ He seemed pleased.

  ‘I don’t think so, but for the time being at least.’

  Could she stay in Crawton? She had nowhere better to go and the idea of going back to her Auckland flat, jobless, didn’t appeal.

  ‘We’re always looking for relievers at the high school. You should email your CV to Barbara Keegan, the principal. Feel free to drop my name — although the fact you’re Lillian’s daughter will be to your advantage.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just discovered how sick Lillian was. What she was getting up to. Surely it was talked about at the school?’

  ‘Yeah, it was. She was acting a bit odd. But she was so good with the kids we all let it slide. Anyway, Alex and I can put a good word in for you.’

  Zoe was silent. Did she really want to be stuck in Crawton again at thirty-three?

  Daniel smiled at the silence. ‘It’s only relieving. We won’t hold you down and make you stay in this godforsaken place.’ He’d read her mind. ‘It’s not that bad, is it?’ he said, gesturing towards the lake.

  ‘Its’s not that. It’s beautiful here. It’s just …’ He didn’t need to know about Lillian and their history. ‘Thank you. I appreciate the offer.’

  He smiled. ‘No worries. I’ll see you around.’

  Zoe watched him leave then headed down to the path by the edge of the lake and started her run. A plan was forming. It was by no means perfect, but at least it was something.

  Chapter 18

  After her run Zoe popped into a café in town and got herself a coffee. She hadn’t really looked around Crawton yet. So far she’d been to the supermarket, the lake and the high school plus across Lillian’s front section to Pam’s. She took her coffee down to the town lake, named the little lake by the locals. From the car park you could follow a pebbled path to the left to the rose garden; straight ahead was the kids’ playground through a row of oaks; right took you through a copse of native trees to the lake. During the day the whole place was mostly the domain of
young mums and their kids and truant high-schoolers, and at night those same teenagers looking for somewhere to smoke and drink away from prying eyes.

  She headed up to the right. Little lake was perhaps too generous a name. It was a man-made pond about fifty metres in diameter and home to a couple of dozen overfed ducks. Zoe walked past the toilet block and sat on a picnic table. She tried to think about her CV but no matter how much Max Vincent had tried to put her mind at rest, Megan Harper was still in the back of her mind and, as much as she didn’t like to admit it, so was Lillian.

  ‘Morning. Lovely day, isn’t it?’

  Zoe jumped and turned. A man had walked around to stand in front of her and the breeze picked up his scent, something between overpowering body spray and a week-old rubbish bin. Avoiding eye contact she said, ‘Oh, hi. Yes, it is,’ hoping he would move on.

  When his shadow still cast a long line over the picnic table she looked up and instantly recognised the face. ‘Gus?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I’m Zoe Haywood. Do you remember me?’

  Gus would be in his late forties now. Zoe and Alex had been part of a community project in their last two years of high school where every Wednesday they put on a lunch at the Baptist church for anyone who needed a hot meal. There weren’t many homeless people in Crawton compared to the bigger cities, but there were always people who wanted the company as well as a hot meal: elderly people living on their own often showed up. Gus was dropped off at the church by his mother, to give herself a break and to give him a bit of company.

  Gus stared at Zoe trying to place her. Then, ‘Zoe,’ he said, his brown eyes widening in recognition. ‘And your friend Alex?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He nodded, smiling, happy that he’d got it right. The criss-cross of scars on his face were still as prominent as they had been all those years ago, the result of a devastating car accident he’d had in his early twenties, before Zoe and Alex had met him, which had left him with slight brain damage. She remembered him as often chatty and happy but sometimes his behaviour was erratic. He once stole a pair of scissors from the church kitchen, started shouting at people and waving the scissors around. One of the volunteers called the police and he calmed down quickly enough.

  ‘What have you been up to, Gus?’ Zoe said, almost afraid to ask.

  ‘Mum died ten years ago. On Saturday June twenty-sixth.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ She remembered Gus’s mum. After the car accident she gave up her job at the bank in town and everything else in her life to care for her injured son. ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I do. A lot.’ He bowed his head and looked towards the lake. Ten years later and his grief was still visible.

  ‘Do you still live at your mum’s place?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘I sold it. It was hard to live there with mum gone.’

  ‘Where do you live now?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘The park?’

  ‘Yeah. When mum died the voices started. They were always there, after the accident, but just whispers. I could ignore them, especially with mum there. But when she died they got louder — every room I went to. I couldn’t escape. But outside is good. And they can’t find me here.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘I worked for the government on top-secret assignments. I used to travel a lot. Undercover, to Russia and Cuba and America. But a few years back I wanted out. But they didn’t want to let me go.’ He tapped the side of his dented head. ‘I know too much.’

  Zoe nodded and got up from her seat and stood further away from Gus, the picnic table between them.

  ‘So now I stay here. It’s good. I sleep in the public toilets in winter. I stash my sleeping bag and blankets in a special little hidey-hole just over there.’ He pointed to some well-groomed shrubs. ‘Wanna see?’ He smiled as though he was about to share a special secret.

  ‘Probably not right now,’ Zoe said, looking around for other people.

  ‘OK. In summer I go out to the big lake. They have a flash place there where people get married and the leftover food is always awesome. Most of the caterers are good about giving us leftovers.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Me and my friend Tania. Do you know Tania?’ he asked, his brow furrowing.

  Zoe heard the crunch of gravel behind her. ‘Is this man bothering you, miss?’

  The policeman standing in front of her was looking at Gus, a frown on his pale face. Gus backed away.

  The policeman turned to her, waiting for an answer, and then smiled. ‘Zoe Haywood, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Zoe was unable to place him. Her brain searched through hazy high-school years. He had acne scars on his cheeks and a sheen of sweat on his freckled forehead below a shock of black curly hair.

  He hooked his fingers through his belt loops, smiling at her cryptically, enjoying her confusion. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? Give up?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Liam Hennessey. We survived Crawton High together.’ The laugh that erupted from his thin lips was high-pitched, suited more to an elderly woman than a man in his thirties.

  ‘Liam. Of course.’ Zoe had a flashback to a pimpled, vertically challenged teen. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  ‘You behaving yourself, Gus?’ he asked, trying to tower over Gus but coming up ten centimetres short. He compensated for this by getting as close to Gus as possible.

  Gus kicked at the gravel surrounding the picnic bench.

  ‘Gus?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked you a question. Are you harassing this nice lady? We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Talking to people you shouldn’t be. Asking for handouts.’

  ‘Look, he’s fine,’ Zoe said, unable to handle his condescending tone any longer. ‘I know Gus from way back.’ She hoped he got the hint that Gus was someone she did remember.

  Hennessey turned back to Zoe, his smile slipping. ‘Good. Just don’t want any trouble. Good to see you, Zoe. Might see you around. You here for long?’

  ‘Not sure. Probably not.’ She turned away and seconds later heard the crunch of gravel as he walked away. She turned back and watched him head towards a patrol car. A policewoman leaning against the passenger side, arms crossed, shook her head and got back in.

  ‘Tosser,’ Gus said. ‘Always on my back. I never do anything wrong.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him. From what I remember he was a bit of a creep in school, an outcast. Looks like he’s trying to make up for it now he’s all grown up.’

  Gus smiled, his scarred face contorting. ‘So do you know Tania?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you know Tania? My friend,’ Gus said, picking up the conversation they were having before Hennessey interrupted.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Zoe thought back to Lillian’s notebook. Tania. The same Tania?

  ‘Do you know where she is?’ He scratched at his head, frowning.

  ‘No, I don’t, sorry.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her in ages.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll see her next time you go out to the big lake?’

  ‘Maybe. But she’s been gone a long time. She just disappeared. I never saw her again.’

  ‘Maybe she moved on.’

  ‘We were good friends. She would’ve told me.’

  ‘Did she have any other friends? Ones you could talk to?’

  ‘She’d scored drugs off some guy a couple of times. He sounded nice. He told her he’d help her get a job. But she never told me his name. He got her some cleaning job. At the Crawton Tavern.’

  Where Megan worked, Zoe thought, joining the pieces.

  ‘Me and her were supposed to meet out at the big lake one weekend in April. There was going to be a wedding on. But she said she was meeting this guy. She made it sound like a date. I nev
er saw her after that.’

  ‘Did you go to the police?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘I went to the police station and talked to Max. He lets me call him Max. Most other people have to call him Sergeant Vincent. He said he’d look into it. I went back a week later and he said there was no sign of her but not to worry, she’d probably just moved on.’

  ‘OK.’ All Zoe could think about was how familiar this sounded. She wanted to get back to Lillian’s notebook at home. She’d spoken to Max about someone called Tania going missing and he said the name wasn’t familiar. Surely there weren’t that many missing people in Crawton for him to forget? Did he lie to me? ‘Look, Gus, I’d better get going. It was good to see you.’

  ‘Good to see you too, Zoe. You hanging around Crawton for a bit?’

  ‘Yeah, I think I will be.’

  ‘Oh yep,’ he said. He was already walking off — obviously done with her.

  ‘Gus,’ she shouted after him, ‘what was Tania’s last name?’

  ‘Myer.’

  She waved to him and left the park, feeling a mixture of fear and pity for the man.