The Vale Girl

by Nelika McDonald

  In Banville, Susannah found that she could not get a job. Whatever money the estate left had been used to pay off the debts her father had accrued, so there was no money waiting for her. There were no vacant positions for waitresses and there was almost nothing else she could do. Almost. You know the rest. She had learnt to take success where she found it. And expect nothing.

  It was fine, we were a team. But she’s started to let the side down, lately. Our respective team responsibilities have started to feel a little unequal. The towel can’t go on the railing if the towel is under her chin to catch the drool. I’m sorry, sir, Ms Vale is indisposed this evening. Tomorrow? The night after? I don’t know. No, sir, I am not available as a substitute. No sir no sir no-no-no. Please.

  chapter twenty

  On Wednesday evening, Sergeant Henson took a seat at the bar to wait for Detective Crane. He was joining Henson and Gertie for dinner that night and had gone up to his room to call his wife before he came. That morning, the first of the forensics results from the evidence at the creek had come in. The blood on both the tree trunk and the leaves was Sarah Vale’s. The long hair in the mud was Sarah’s too, matched from her hairbrush at home. The other hair was still undergoing testing. Roberts was stationed by the phone to wait. The results were not really a surprise, but Henson still had to stop for a moment when they came in. He went into the toilet and rested his forehead against the back of the cubicle door, closing his eyes. He was not a religious man, but prayers were said in that cubicle. Then he swallowed a couple of pills and went back to work.

  Tonight, the sergeant was thirsty, but it wasn’t just a glass of the amber he was after. Apart from being the second-biggest social hotspot of Banville (church topped the pitiful list), the pub was where Banville aired its dirty laundry. The bums on the stools along that bar were the judge and jury of this town. If anybody knew anything about Sarah’s disappearance, this was where they would be speaking about it.

  ‘How’s business, Reg?’

  ‘Scraping by, Sarge.’ The publican placed a schooner down in front of Sergeant Henson. Scraping by indeed. Reg watered down the beer he sold at the pub so much that it was barely more than H2O that had passed by beer in a hallway. Anyway, he had the monopoly on the watering-hole business in these parts, and these parts were thirsty. There had been talk of some Welonga folks opening a bistro in the vacant shop next to the locksmith’s a while back, but after a visit from Reg they changed their tune. He swore he had simply given them a rough breakdown of his weekly ins and outs to give them an idea of the market, but his hands were bandaged for a week afterwards. Sergeant Henson stayed out of that one. As far as he was concerned, one pub in Banville contained about as many drunks as he could manage.

  ‘Good to hear.’

  Henson nursed his beer. At the tables by the windows overlooking the main street, a raucous group of locals was loudly singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Colin Baillett sat at the head of the table, wearing a plastic yellow bucket on his head. A rectangular strip was cut out for the eyes and a novelty curly straw protruded out from the bottom into a schooner of beer on the table. Henson deduced that he was the birthday boy.

  ‘Business as usual,’ he said to Reg, nodding at the celebrations.

  ‘Fuckin’ idiots,’ mumbled Reg, wiping the bar with a tea towel. ‘Baillets get stupider the older they get.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘My oath. Dumb as a box of rocks.’ Reg shook his head, sorrowful.

  The sergeant took a sip of his beer. ‘Been wondering, Reg.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Have you heard any talk about Susannah Vale’s girl? Sarah? Anyone seem to be taking an especial interest in her that you know of?’

  ‘Oh. That. I don’t know nothing about that.’ Reg shook his head and looked up to the television. The football was on. The camera zoomed in on Max Cleary going for a penalty kick, and traced the arc of the ball as it left his toe and glided through the air, curling back down to fall a lousy metre wide of the goalpost. Reg swore and shook his head. The television showed a slow-motion replay of the kick, and a silver blur marked the ball’s trajectory on the screen like the trail of a snail. It occurred to the sergeant how useful it would be if people left such tracks behind them wherever they went. He chose his next words carefully.

  ‘I’m surprised. You usually have a handle on just about all the goings-on in these parts, Reg.’

  ‘I still do.’ Reg sounded affronted. ‘Nobody’s said anything is all.’

  ‘Do you know Susannah yourself?’

  The publican’s eyes dropped. ‘Not know her, but, yeah, I know her. Went to school with her. I remember she was Ophelia in Hamlet, she was. She had the audience in the palm of her hand.’ He reddened a little.

  ‘Not popular these days, though, is she?’

  ‘Not since that business she pulled back when the girl was a wee –’

  At the other end of the bar, Mitch Wolfe, the second eldest of the brothers, was signalling Reg for another round by tapping his empty glass loudly on the wooden counter. Reg said something under his breath, and ambled slowly over to serve him. Sergeant Henson watched as Reg pulled a perfect pint with his gaze on the television screen, never once looking at his hands. He waited for Mitch to drop his coins on the counter before he pushed the glass towards him. Reg rang up the purchase then came back to the sergeant.

  ‘Oi, where’s my bloody change?’ Mitch called after him.

  ‘Price’s gone up.’

  ‘Since bloody when?’

  ‘Since you walked in the door,’ Reg muttered.

  ‘Not your favourite punter?’ Henson queried, grabbing a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar.

  Reg grimaced. ‘All of those Wolfe boys – rotten apples grow on poisoned trees.’

  Sergeant Henson nodded. He threw some peanuts into his mouth and spoke around them. ‘You don’t get young Cameron in here too, do you? He’s gone walkabout lately, and I’d sure like to know when he was last about.’

  ‘I don’t serve underage customers, Sarge.’

  ‘Of course not. But . . .’

  Reg shrugged and polished a spot on the bar.

  ‘Ah well, then.’ Henson drained his beer and got up to leave. He took out his wallet again, counted out some money and piled it next to his empty glass.

  ‘No need for that, Sarge. It’s on the house.’ Reg eyed the money, but kept his hands under the counter.

  ‘But you’re barely scraping by, Reg. Like you said.’ Henson picked up his hat from the stool next to him, and took his time adjusting his holster, replacing his radio and tucking his shirt into his waistband.

  Reg shifted his weight from one foot to the other and crossed his arms over his rotund midsection.

  ‘You might have a word with Frank Watson, there. He larks about with Cameron,’ he said. He raised his chin in the direction of the birthday party.

  ‘’Preciate that, Reg.’

  The publican knew who he had to keep on his good side. The two men nodded to each other and Sergeant Henson wandered over to the tables near the windows. The occupants all went quiet at his approach.

  ‘Evening, fellas.’

  ‘Evening, Sarge,’ they chorused, and looked into their drinks.

  ‘Quick word, Watson? Sorry to interrupt.’

  They all breathed out except for Frank Watson, who shot up from his chair so quickly that it crashed to the floor behind him. Colin Baillett lifted his bucket to snigger at his friend. Henson led Watson out to the verandah, away from the watchful gaze of Mitch at the bar.

  ‘I won’t keep you, Frank, I know you’ve a party to get back to.’

  Frank swayed where he stood and grinned. ‘’S no problem, Sarge.’

  ‘I know you’re mates with Cameron Wolfe. I need to know if he ever mentioned Sarah Vale to you before?’

  ‘Sarah Vale? The prossy’s daughter?’ Frank smirked.

  ‘Her mother is a prostitute, yes. Irrespective of that, Sarah is the girl who
’s missing.’ The sergeant looked at the man before him. He had the Watson shiftiness to him; ‘likely up to no good even if he appears to be just taking a piss’ his file at the station read.

  ‘Oh. Prob’ly out touting for her ma. Rustling up some business.’ He cackled at his own wit and Sergeant Henson shot his fist out and planted it in Frank’s solar plexus. The man groaned in surprise.

  ‘Show some fucking respect, Watson.’

  ‘Sorry, Sarge.’ He tried to stand up straight.

  ‘Well?’

  Frank Watson peered at him. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Has Cameron said anything to you about her disappearance?’

  ‘Oh. Nah. Nobody has, really. Not her. Cameron was saying somethin’ the other day about a girl at school he reckoned would go to the ends of the earth for him, but I don’t think it was her.’

  ‘You don’t think? Or you know it wasn’t her he was referring to?’

  Frank frowned at him and belched. ‘Who?’

  The sergeant gritted his teeth. ‘Sarah Vale.’

  ‘Oh, her. Don’t know nothing about her, Sarge. You know how it is. Haven’t seen Cameron for a bit. Probably gone to see his old man.’

  Sergeant Henson stared at him. Watson peered at his feet, and then, after a few moments passed, shuffled back into the pub. Henson stood on the verandah, looking at the black strip of the road unfurling like a ribbon down to the horizon, where the houses gave way to the sprawl of spread-eagled farms and the creek slithered through the landscape like a snake. The sun was setting and it cast a pretty glow on the street, the flowers were blooming in clumps of riotous red and the gum trees waved slender fingers at the sky. The shops had all been given a last lick and polish in preparation for the Grevillea Festival, and the street was spotless. Even the rubbish bins had been scrubbed and the lampposts buffed. The sergeant put his hand to the small of his back and stretched. He had to admit it was an attractive scene, but still. It seemed in poor taste to be celebrating anything. He took out his pill bottle and swallowed another one down.

  If it had been any other girl, the phone would be ringing off the hook. The SES would be scattered through the town, their orange jumpsuits spotted around the bush like buoys bobbing in the sea. There would be action groups and search-and-rescue groups and support groups and groups to coordinate the other groups. But not for Sarah Vale, the prostitute’s daughter. She must have made them all too uncomfortable. Imagine if the Sydney papers got wind of it? Banville was supposed to be quaint. A charming tourist town, dedicated to filiopietistic homage. That was their currency. And prostitutes with missing daughters were neither quaint nor charming.

  chapter twenty-one

  When Susannah returned to Banville, Graham felt like he had been given a second chance at a life with love in it. All was not lost. After the miscarriage, Geraldine had become sullen and withdrawn, sensitive to every misstep her new husband made; already weary of trying to fathom the man she had married. As her mother had said to her, when the baby came, it would all be worth it. Alas, Graham was not the only one whose plans did not come to fruition.

  Geraldine thought she knew men, thought she understood them, but Graham was a different breed entirely to the men she had grown up with. The way he would look at her, those big, pale eyes, the opaque blue blankness of them, the surface like a glazed ceramic plate – well. It put her off her beans and toast. A simple question like ‘Shall we have the veal or the lamb for dinner, Graham?’ turned him into a blithering mess, stammering and floundering, paralysed by the enormity of the decision. He approached each day with his new wife as though it was a test he expected to fail, and fail he did. He knew Geraldine just wanted him to be decisive, to be firm, not so meek or so bloody solicitous. But Graham, raised in a houseful of domineering sisters, had learnt early to sidestep conflict by just letting people have their own way. Besides, often Geraldine asked him for his opinion on things that he didn’t give a fig about. Veal or lamb? Who cared? So he deferred to her wishes, acquiesced at every turn, anything to keep his new wife from badgering him, and she hated him for it.

  Amongst the residents of Banville, the consensus was that it was dismal luck for both Graham and Geraldine that they had ended up bound in matrimony to each other. But people had suffered through worse, and, as Graham’s sisters pointed out, the Spencer family were obliged to be the most loyal customers of the bank now. An account such as that of the Spencer real estate empire secured the viability of the family business for the foreseeable future. ‘It puts Pa’s mind at ease, Graham,’ the sisters assured him, already filling in the order forms for their new bathroom suites of imitation mahogany, and circling threshers and harvest carts in the John Deere catalogues for their husbands. The Knights had fallen on hard times in recent years. The Bank of New South Wales had opened a branch in Welonga and, against his better judgement, Graham’s father had upgraded the Knights’ facilities in order to compete. Many thousands of dollars’ worth of refurbishment later, including an ATM that none of the locals would use, Mr Knight was as broke as a church mouse. Until his son got the Spencer girl up the duff. That was the most lucrative and also the most stupid thing Graham had ever done, in his father’s mind.

  And then Susannah returned. Once she was settled back into the big old house next to the park, Graham’s first impulse was to hotfoot it to the magistrate’s office to apply for a divorce, but his father headed him off.

  ‘You want to leave your wife to take up with a floozy?’ Mr Knight was genuinely incredulous. He had not been aware that his son had the balls to even consider such an undertaking.

  ‘I love her,’ Graham said, an effort that cost him a great deal, love not being a word spoken often in the Knight household, and certainly not in the kitchen.

  ‘Eh?’ The father peered at his son and got them each another bottle of beer from the fridge. He twisted off the tops with his forearm and then balanced them, one by one, between the tip of his index finger and the pad of his middle finger, and flicked them at a portrait of the Queen that hung above the china cabinet in the adjacent sitting room. The second cap hit her on the crown.

  ‘I said, I love Susannah,’ Graham repeated, louder this time.

  His father laughed, not unkindly, just not comprehending. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  Graham stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So you love her, nobody’s stopping you. That doesn’t mean you can’t keep to your marriage vows now, does it?’

  The brightness of Graham’s future dimmed a little at that moment. But gradually, he began to see the logic in what his father suggested. Divorce would have been social suicide for Geraldine. Banville was even more conservative back then, and her devoutly Catholic mother would never have felt able to show her face on Main Street again. But this way, Geraldine retained her status, Graham retained his sanity, and his family kept their bathroom suites fashionably current. All he had to do was to be discreet, to keep his head down and the relationship unobtrusive. Graham knew about Susannah’s means of income, and he disliked it with every fibre of his being. But Susannah was not the sort of woman whom you could tell what to do. He had no official claim to her, being married to someone else, and besides, she had to earn a living somehow.

  However, Susannah had not forgiven him for his indiscretion with Geraldine. Graham had been the only person in Banville whom she thought she could count on, and he had let her down. After she came back, it was months before she would even consent to see him. Eventually, after Graham had waited on her verandah all week, Susannah brought him a cup of coffee, and they talked a little. The next time, they talked a little more. After a while, Graham felt like Geraldine and Sydney and everything else that had come between them ceased to exist when they were together. It didn’t come as easily for Susannah, though. She made it clear that her faith in him was not going to be restored overnight. It wasn’t just him; she was pretty much bone dry of faith in anyone. She told Graham that he could continue to visit her, a
s often as he liked, but on one condition – that he come as a paying customer, like any other.

  Graham didn’t mind. Susannah was worth it. He was just so grateful that she had come back; he would take what he could get and thank the heavens for every bit of it. For a while, it all went swimmingly. Graham could not believe his luck. He had all he had ever wanted: Susannah Vale, peace and quiet, and the happiness of his family. But Susannah had other plans, and peace and quiet did not factor into them at all.

  chapter twenty-two

  Tommy had coaxed fifty copies of his poster out of Elspeth Mackey. As he had envisioned, MISSING was written across the top in red pen, and in black pen over Sarah’s chest he had written, ‘If you know anything about where Sarah Vale is, please tell Sergeant Henson, ph: 642 3465. Reward offered for information.’ That part was a lie. When the post office had closed that night, and Tommy had seen Elspeth’s car turn the corner at the end of Main Street, he had used his trusty copper wire to break in and make another two hundred copies. Now, he proceeded to trek across the whole of Banville and tape them to every single lamppost and power pole in the town. Some of them were only metres apart, but saturation was warranted in this instance, he felt. He stopped outside the Wolfe house. There were ten posters left. Sergeant Henson had never told him exactly what Mrs Wolfe had said, just that Cameron ‘didn’t appear to be residing in Banville at this time’. Which could mean just about anything. But Cameron had always been after Sarah. Whether his apparent fascination with her came from hatred or a lust akin to his own for the Vale girl, Tommy would not have bet money on, if he’d had any. He could not blame Cameron if he did love her, but Cameron Wolfe did not seem capable of love or of anything much but leaving cruelty in his wake.

  Sarah had told him a few weeks back about Cameron and his mates waiting for her in the park one evening when she came home late from school after a detention (poor attendance). In the gathering dark, Cameron had knocked her to the ground and clamped a hand over her mouth as she screamed. Fortunately, Graham Knight had appeared on his bicycle at the very moment Sarah was straining to open her teeth enough to bite the flesh of Cameron’s palm. His thumb twanging at the bell insistently, Graham pulled up alongside Sarah where she lay in the grass and clambered off his bike, and she saw behind him the shadowy backs of Cameron and his friends retreating via the road. Sarah had listened with her heart in her mouth to the drum of footsteps on the bitumen as the boys ran back towards Main Street, probably to get drunk on the homebrew that Cameron’s brothers made in their shed and drag race their Holden Commodores down the road to Welonga. She hoped they crashed.