by S. R. White
‘So you grew up in a home at odds with the world around you?’
‘Yes, I did.’ Jeb stopped, then seemed to realise he didn’t want to finish the statement. ‘We did. Had to adapt and live two different lives, really.’
Jeb mopped his glowing temples in a way Mike found curiously effeminate. He patted at them with an immaculate handkerchief – there was something precious about the gesture that didn’t fit his overbearing presence.
‘There was no church school in town and they couldn’t afford private education for either of us, Nate and I. So we had to go to the local school. I think our parents thought it was bad for our discipline but they never had the money to do anything about it.’
‘Discipline?’
Jeb looked up at the light then down again. ‘I don’t know how you were raised, Detective, but in my house there were rules, and a price for disobeying them. There was a strict hierarchy, a known code of conduct. Retribution was swift, the consequences of action were clear. Our house had a lockable cellar; dark, cold – full of spiders, snakes in summer. The threat was often enough. Let’s say the upper hand was what worked in that house. Nathan never got to grips with it. I was a quicker study.’
Mike concentrated hard to make sure he would recall the exact wording of Jeb’s answers. He felt they needed unpicking, somehow. For such a solid physical object, Jeb was a lot of smoke.
‘I see. How did your parents react when Nathan came along?’
‘Oh, mortified. Something’d gone wrong, hadn’t it?’ Jeb put his hands flat on the table, appearing to warm to the conversation when it turned to his parents’ potential hypocrisy or humiliation. Mike made a note as Jeb talked on.
‘Either they’d had sex when they should’ve had the faith to resist temptation, or something failed in the contraception department. Only two options, right?’
‘So Nathan was seen as . . . ?’
‘A mistake. A horrible and obvious, walking and talking mistake. Anyone who’d thought they were a strict, holy, righteous couple were sniggering and pointing. They were a laughing stock. The devout couple and their nineteenth-century ways – and here was proof they had fornicated when they weren’t planning for a child. Everyone could see it: like catching an Amish with a laptop, you know? Nathan was their own weakness reflected back at them.’
The last struck Mike as the result of plenty of brooding; possibly, of therapy. Jeb’s dislike of his parents – and the discrepancy between their preachiness and behaviour – was apparent. Parents like those produced offspring like these, Mike concluded.
‘That’s a very deep-thinking view. Did they treat him any differently?’
‘From how they’d treated me?’ Jeb puffed his cheeks and rolled his eyes: the theatre of years of exasperation. ‘Oh, yeah. They indulged him. For all that he was a mistake, they knew it wasn’t his fault he’d been born. So they cut him some slack. I’d been on a tighter leash: classic first child. I was way older, of course, but I was the upcoming man of the house and Nate could just moon around, reading and stuff.’
This was all useful background – but Mike knew Dana would need some concrete examples to throw at Nathan: an inside hook that would open him up further.
‘So discipline continued to be a significant factor in your own upbringing?’
‘Oh, absolutely. As I got older, it became clearer to me about who instilled discipline and who controlled things. The rules got a little sharper, the punishments a little more imaginative. Next level, so to speak. The longer it all went on, the more it became a “my way or the highway” kind of thing. I guess Nate took the highway.’
Something about Jeb’s tone, or maybe his language, had shifted. It wasn’t quite in Mike’s grasp yet, though.
‘Was it a surprise, when your brother left?’
‘Oh, totally. I mean, who’d have thought? I never picked Nate as the leaving type. I assumed he’d be staying at the farm for the rest of his life. He had this little job in a furniture shop—’
‘Pringles? Yeah, we’ve been there.’
‘Really? Oh. Okay. So you know about that.’ The news obviously rattled Jeb. ‘Well, I suppose I thought Nate would carry on there indefinitely. He didn’t seem the type to break away, you know?’
‘Surprised he was allowed to work. Tight rein, and all that.’
‘Well, money was always tricky. My mother didn’t work. My dad was an accounts clerk – that’s not a big earner. My brother had to contribute what he could, when he could. Nate was expected to pitch in, play his part.’
Nothing about Jeb’s own contribution, Mike noted. ‘So, the day of his leaving?’
‘Just like the day before it. Walked to work, apparently left at lunchtime. No one from Pringle’s contacted me or anything. I had no reason to think he wasn’t at work. When he didn’t show up for dinner I rode around trying to find him, but no luck. Next morning, I spoke to Pringle. Said Nate had taken his pay, picked up all his stuff and left.’
That was it, thought Mike: the pronouns had moved. By the time Nathan was leaving it was all I, I, I. The parents had melted into the background; Jeb was front and centre in his own play. The power must have shifted.
‘And there was no trail? No further contact at all?’
‘Not a thing. I even tried a private detective, but Nate had disappeared into thin air. No letters, no phone calls. Nothing to say he was okay. I would really like to know where he got to, Detective.’
Jeb leaned forward and glowered as he said it. Mike sat impassive and Jeb seemed to realise who was who and where he was. He sat back and linked hands in his lap. Supplication didn’t suit him.
‘We can’t discuss that aspect right now, Jeb. There’s an ongoing investigation, so we have to be discreet. I’m sure it’ll all come out in the fullness of time.’
‘He can’t just have disappeared into nowhere. Someone must have known where he was, what he was doing.’
You’d think so, wouldn’t you, reflected Mike. I’d have thought so, too, until today.
‘And you, Jeb, what did you do when you left school?’
‘I started in construction. Steel frames – I helped put them up. After a couple of years I thought I could do better than the guy running the company, so I started my own.’
‘And did you? Do better, I mean?’
‘God, yeah. It’s not so hard. Gradually expanded out of state; now we’re international. That’s where I was – up north. Deal for five warehouses.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks. I have good people in the major positions now. They’re the real asset.’
It didn’t sound right: too trite, too business-book. Jeb came across to Mike as someone who ran everything exactly as he personally wanted it – no opposition, only implementation.
‘To be honest,’ Jeb continued, ‘it’s losing its challenge. I’ve been looking to diversify. I have a couple of irons in the fire.’
‘To keep your hand in?’
‘Exactly.’
Mike couldn’t see this line of inquiry going anywhere. He wanted follow-up on what he’d heard. Someone would have to go to the farm and see if they could find anyone who knew the Whittler parents.
‘Well, that’s great, Jeb. It’s really been useful, thank you. If you could give me your mobile number?’
Jeb reeled it off quickly, almost too fast for Mike to note.
‘As I say, we’re looking after Nathan just fine. He has all the medical and other services he needs right now. But we’re taking it nice and slowly – short interviews with rest periods in between. So you don’t need to worry about his welfare.’
‘But I do, Detective. I’m his brother. Last relative, and all. I’d really like to see him, talk to him.’
Mike waved the notepad.
‘I have your number. You might as well grab some food or something. Get unpacked from your trip. As soon as Nathan indicates he’s ready to see his brother, I’ll call you straight away.’
Jeb sloped
out of the main door and Mike made sure to watch him from behind a pillar. As anticipated, Jeb turned when he thought no one was watching and scowled at the station.
Chapter 27
People were beginning to seep out of offices towards their cars: Carlton was going home. A bus growled on a side street, swamped by ads beseeching viewers to watch Channel 7’s latest reality show: some people would be cooking some things, and apparently ‘all Australia’ wanted to see. A gaggle of female students – all in tight jeans and overlong knitted scarves – crossed Dana’s path. She had to stop to avoid a collision and they passed on, oblivious and assured. If it’s a murder of crows, she thought, what’s the collective noun for a group of pretty, entitled college girls? A meanness? A stiletto?
Father Timms was tucked up in a dogtooth coat that made him look like a noir extra – the guy who delivered proof the girl was still alive. Their bench was well away from the flow of footsteps across the plaza.
Timms passed her a coffee: single-shot, one sugar, whipped slightly by a chill breeze that had imposed itself on the plaza. She liked that he knew her regular order.
Dana suddenly recalled it was Friday today: that fact had escaped her totally since midnight. The sunlight was hazy and milky; maybe forty minutes of daylight left. It made her realise how long the day had been, and how long the Day was.
Timms had a dishwater-colour tea in a Styrofoam cup. She thought tea should be in a proper cup, or at least a mug. It looked . . . unseemly.
‘Today’s the anniversary, isn’t it?’ asked Timms.
He’d said that this morning, Dana realised as she sat. She’d been on her way out of the church, desperate to escape the iconography and everything associated with it and had pretty much blanked out Timms’ offering.
‘How come you remember that?’
Sometimes, key chunks of the moments in question were a little confused in Dana’s head. Incidents, faces, words: all too real and all too visceral. They could reduce her to near-catatonic panic. But dates, and the sequences where people arrived and left the scenes: not so much. Details had dissolved into maelstroms of promises never kept, assurances that wilted, denial made truth. It was almost as if she deliberately dissembled that aspect for self-preservation – purposely scrambling the jigsaw pieces in her mind. Remembering everything would be too vivid, too much impact. She knew this was the Day, but other specifics often eluded her.
‘A week or two after last year’s . . . well, after, I made a note in my phone. Just of the date, you understand, not of the details. Such as I know them.’ Timms paused and they watched a woman pull frantically on a lead as a large dog quite literally followed its nose towards the fountain. ‘So, you know, my phone remembered.’
She couldn’t turn to look at him: she spoke to her cup.
‘That’s, uh, impressive. Weird.’
‘None taken.’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘Sorry. I tend to carry stuff in my head, not on spreadsheets, or technology, or whatever. If someone gives me a telephone number, I memorise it; I don’t punch it into a phone.’
‘Memorise? Jeez, Grandma, no one outside a spelling bee memorises. They know which website it’s stored on in case they need to get it. The modern world is about access, not ownership. Take music, for example. We used to own records, cassettes, CDs; now we have access to a website.’ He took another slurp. ‘But you’re trying to distract from the point here.’
‘Yes. And it was going quite well.’
‘So it is the anniversary today, Dana?’
Sometimes she forgot how much Timms knew. Or exactly where his knowledge came from. Dana had confessed some to him in conversations such as this; a bit had been reported in the media ages ago; parts of it were dusty public record – if you knew where to look, had the right names and understood what you were searching for. Much of what Timms knew – or thought he knew – would have been half-gleaned from his colleagues down the years. It would be a sketchy mosaic of rumour, innuendo, bearing witness and reading confidential documents. The Church recorded everything, then protected some of it. Some of them.
‘Yes, it is today. I keep getting flashes.’ Dana shook her head. ‘Which is odd: they feel like they might be out of sequence.’ She was aware her chronology was hazy at times.
‘Hmm,’ he replied. ‘Memory doesn’t work in a straight line. Each memory has a different type of emotional pull, a different sort of . . . gravity.’
‘True enough. People’s blame always sticks in my mind.’
‘You were a child. Only one person ever truly blamed you, Dana, and they were wrong in every way.’
She thought about that, before turning to face him.
‘That isn’t true, though, is it? I can’t pretend that it is. You weren’t there: let me promise you, there were plenty ready to buy into it. The idea that only one person thinks a particular thing? Doesn’t stack up. Even Hitler wasn’t the only person who believed in what Hitler was doing. There isn’t a thing in this world that only one person believes. Nothing so vile, or ludicrous, that there aren’t a phalanx of people out there ready to credit it.’
She waited for a comeback; none came. Only her own words flowed on.
‘There were others. Complicit, acquiescing supporters. Every bully needs an audience. There were followers, believers. I know it wasn’t only one person. I’ve never been able to wish away that knowledge, no matter how much I wanted to.’
He had no answer to that.
Dana glanced across the sweep of people. A street-cleaning truck winked its orange warning lights near the junction, easing around a ute replete with fishing gear. The columns fronting the town hall took on a more honeyed patina as dusk approached. Civic reassurance was always a solid Carlton virtue: it was a town that knew how to carry on gracefully, even though it was merely managed decline. The immaculate streets, preserved heritage, hanging baskets and air of civility couldn’t beat the numbers: employers and talent were seeping away to the city, unnoticed but inexorable. Earlville wore its winnowed heart on its sleeve; Carlton suffered internal bleeding.
Timms broke the silence. ‘You called me. So you must have something specific on your mind?’ A priest’s ability to ask an open yet prodding question; not so different from Dana’s job after all.
‘I don’t know that I do, necessarily. Just. I’m finding this Day, uh, hard to handle.’ The temperature change from indoors to outdoors had made her scalp itch; she scratched at her head and rubbed a cheek. ‘I always do, of course. Every year. But I’m, well, I’m working a homicide today. Usually I have a day away and try to do some thinking.’
‘Maybe it’s better to do less thinking. At least about that. For today.’
She swirled the cup, her breath beginning to mist as the temperature slid. ‘Hmmm, I’d thought that. Hoped that. But it isn’t.’ She looked across to him briefly, then away. ‘It comes like little bursts of heat. I don’t know when, or why. Gushes through when I don’t expect it. And it’s all I can do to stop it overwhelming me, bring everything to a halt.’
She stopped, embarrassed by her inability to cope with simply being at work. What would people think if she couldn’t handle it? What would they think, but never say?
‘If I’m not working, I can halt. I can stop the car, or turn off the TV, or whatever; I can stop and let it happen, let myself roll with it. But today, I can’t. When a wave hits me like that, I get paralysed. I stand there and pray it won’t swallow me.’
‘You pray?’
‘Turn of phrase. Don’t get your hopes up.’
‘Well, I can’t give you lots of platitudes about this, can I? We both know you’ve heard them a thousand times.’
Yes, thought Dana. A thousand times from fifty different people, for years. It all poured through, downhill and out of sight. There was no phrasing, no combination of words, that washed it all away.
‘So all I’ll say is this,’ continued Timms. ‘Everything else can keep. Your killer – you’ll catch them tom
orrow, or the next day. Sounds from the news like you might have them locked up already. There’s no need to do everything this moment. Your number-one priority must be you. Always. But especially today.’
It was exactly the advice she’d give to someone in her position. She could step outside herself long enough to share that wisdom, but not long enough to take it.
Timms seemed to sense this. ‘Look, make a deal with me.’
‘A trade-off? That doesn’t sound like it’s in the Bible. They literally had words carved in stone.’
‘My particular god is extremely pragmatic. As you know.’ He looked away and she diplomatically avoided giving a sidelong glance.
‘So here it is,’ he continued. ‘It’s four o’clock now. Promise me, no matter what, you’ll be home by five thirty. I know it’s a short walk from the station to your home. Five thirty: and text me when you reach the sofa.’
She turned and offered a handshake. ‘Deal. And thanks, you know. Just. Well, thanks.’
Timms was the only person in this town who knew anything much about the Day, and he didn’t treat her like a victim. He didn’t offer pat advice, or homilies, or some stupid little psychobabble game where the aim was to fool herself. For years, experts had offered her a series of programmes, therapies, action plans, exercises to do and report back on; each devised to allow her to ‘take control’ somehow. They all required that she either try to outsmart herself or wilfully become more stupid.
Father Timms knew not to dabble in that kind of suggestion. Instead he offered non-denominational, non-judgemental support and the kind of advice that took a slight edge off the worst of it. Which was pretty much all Dana felt she could do for herself. She and Father Timms were of the same mind on this one: it was all about damage limitation and staggering through. That was the basis of trying to shutter everything off into the Day: trammelling the worst thoughts and attempting to corral them into twenty-four hours.