The Vale Girl

by Nelika McDonald

  Susannah put her hand on his knee, and nodded at the sergeant and the others in the room, who all had their eyes trained on him, waiting. Graham understood but, for just a moment longer, continued to ignore them. He looked down at himself, sitting there with Sarah on one side and Susannah on the other, and memorised it, in case it never happened again. Susannah nudged him and cleared her throat.

  ‘Um,’ he said. He had never been much of a public speaker.

  ‘Sarah was just explaining how you saved her,’ Susannah said.

  Tommy snorted, and folded his arms across his chest.

  Graham scratched at his head around the edges of the plaster.

  Sarah touched his arm. ‘Please, Graham,’ she said. ‘I told them what happened at the creek. Now you need to tell them what happened next. About your plan.’

  Graham looked at her knotted hair and hunched shoulders. She could barely lift her head.

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  Sergeant Henson poised his pencil above his notepad and Graham began to speak.

  ‘I just wanted to get her out of there,’ he said. He instructed himself to keep his voice strong and clear. For once in your life, Graham, don’t speak like you’re apologising for something. ‘The only place I could think of was my basement. It isn’t the Ritz, but at least I knew she was safe there, and nobody would find her. The plan was for her to just hole up there for a while. It sounds terrible, a basement, but I made it comfortable. I made it nice for her.’ Susannah bit her lip and Graham shuffled a bit closer to her.

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing I would normally do. I don’t think I’ve even got a parking ticket before . . . Anyway. I didn’t think Sarah would be reported missing. Nobody had paid much attention to her before; I didn’t think they would suddenly start now. We knew we had a few days before Cameron’s body washed up. People would probably think he was in Sydney in the meantime. And then we were going to leave together. Sarah, her mother and me. But,’ Graham said, and he glanced at Sergeant Henson, ‘Susannah didn’t want to go. She didn’t know how bad it was.’

  Susannah let out a small moan.

  ‘And we didn’t count on Tommy and you,’ Graham went on, looking at them both. Tommy’s eyes flicked towards him, then away again. Graham tried to gauge the sergeant’s reaction to his words, but the police officer kept his face impassive. Graham swallowed. It didn’t matter what Henson thought. A man had only to live with himself.

  ‘What with the Grevillea Festival coming up and how people feel about Susannah, I didn’t think Sarah’s disappearance would be taken seriously. I just didn’t think anyone cared enough. I was wrong’ – Graham looked directly at Tommy now – ‘and for that I owe you an apology.’

  Tommy met his eyes for a second, then looked down at the floor.

  Graham turned to Henson. ‘And when you got the Sydney police on board, we could hardly believe it. Aramore certainly wouldn’t have bothered. I thought that Crane fellow would sniff Sarah out for sure.’

  Henson shook his head.

  ‘And then,’ Graham said, and he paused for a moment, ‘then it started to rain.’

  Susannah reached for his hand, and they leant into each other. Both of them looked towards Sarah, as if checking on her. She did not lift her head. Tommy stood up and walked away for a few paces, his back to the rest of them and hands clasped behind his neck. Gertie stood to follow him, but Henson pulled her back down.

  ‘We knew we might not have as much time as we’d thought,’ Graham said. ‘So I decided we had to leave straight away. I went to tell Susannah. Then Tommy spotted Sarah through the window . . .’ He trailed off, and shrugged.

  ‘And here we all are,’ Susannah said, glaring at the sergeant as though daring him to challenge them.

  ‘But we’re not all here,’ Sarah said, and everyone turned to look at her. She held her stomach as though she was in pain. Her voice bent and snapped. ‘Cameron Wolfe is not here.’

  ‘And that’s a blessing from above,’ Gertie said, her voice fierce, and then covered her mouth with her hand.

  Henson raised his eyebrows at her and Graham clamped his hands under his arms to stop them shaking. He hoped Gertie’s husband shared her view.

  The sergeant got up and walked over to the window. He gazed outside. Headlights curled across the glass as several cars pulled into the car park outside. Next to him, Graham felt Susannah breathe in short, shallow huffs, kneading his leg as though it was a lump of dough. She held her hand out to her daughter but Sarah stayed where she was.

  The nurse who Graham had spoken to earlier walked down the hallway past the waiting room, then did a double take and poked her head into the room.

  ‘I thought I told you . . .’

  Graham gave her a look, contempt and thunder. She changed the subject.

  ‘Phone call for Sergeant Henson.’ Her white shoes squeaked on the floor as she hurried away.

  ‘Stay here.’ The sergeant pointed at Graham, then followed the nurse down the hall.

  Sitting with the others in the waiting room, Graham listened to the rattle of the wheels on the medication trolley as the patients were delivered their last doses before bed. The lights in the hallway were dimmed, and a janitor pushed a mop bucket into a closet. Nobody spoke. The television in the waiting room flickered into black. Sergeant Henson returned, and stood in the doorway.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he said. ‘Immediately.’

  chapter forty-nine

  Everyone stood up and started talking at once, but nobody knew what was going on. Least of all, me. Eventually Sergeant Henson just started pointing and issuing commands.

  ‘Gert, you and Tommy go home. But you’ll have to walk, I need your car. Susannah and Graham, you come with me. You too, Sarah.’

  Gertie nodded and gave Tommy a nudge, pushing him out of the room. He looked at me, confused, but there was no time to speak. And then he was gone, and Mum and Graham each had me by an elbow and were towing me down the hall after Sergeant Henson. He walked so fast we could hardly keep up, pushing through a series of doors marked Staff Only until we came to a sort of locker room. Nobody was in there.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said, and disappeared through the doors again.

  Graham and I looked at each other, and I think we both had the same thought: run. But we didn’t. Mum was biting her bottom lip so hard it was turning white. She was sweating, and had a balled fist pressed into her abdomen. I was about to ask her if she was okay, but then Sergeant Henson came back.

  ‘This way,’ he said, holding the door open and ushering us towards it, ‘and stay quiet.’

  When we got outside, it was pitch black. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I could see we were in a car park, but not the main one for visitors. It must have been the staff car park, and it was empty but for us. Nonetheless, Henson had taken the precaution of leaving Gertie’s car idling with the headlights off. I had no idea what was happening. Was he taking me to jail? Why were we going in Gertie’s car and not the squad car? And why all the secrecy?

  ‘Get in,’ Sergeant Henson said.

  He drove out of the car park at a crawl, still with the lights off, and instead of turning onto Main Street he turned down into a back street, and then another and another. Nobody spoke. We passed only one other car, and without being told, Graham and Mum and I all shrunk down in our seats. It was clear that whatever the sergeant was doing with us, he wanted it to be discreet. Every muscle I had was pulled taut, pinched and pegged in on itself. Eventually, we came out on a main road somewhere and Henson turned the lights on. He looked at us in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Where were you going to go?’ he asked.

  None of us said anything for a moment. I looked at his shoulders, head held erect and hands steady on the steering wheel, ten and two, at his eyes in the mirror. He was inscrutable. A car passed us with loud music blaring, and I heard a bubbling of laughter as someone tossed a can out of the window into a tussock of gra
ss on the shoulder of the road. I thought about being in that car, with girls that smelt like shampoo and boys with big wide hands like paddles and easy laughs. Squashed in a dark car, thighs pressed together, shy or sometimes not shy, the whole night ahead of them and then days and nights beyond that. Anything could happen; they were songs with no lyrics yet. Nothing but possibilities wrapped in skin.

  Eventually Henson repeated himself, louder. ‘Where were you going to go, tonight? When you all left?’

  Graham looked at me and I shrugged. Tell him, don’t tell him. What did it matter now?

  ‘Bondi,’ Graham said finally. ‘At first, anyway. Sarah likes the beach.’

  Sergeant Henson didn’t reply.

  I peered outside but had no idea where we were. Banville looked different from a car. I tried to make out something, anything, to get my bearings by, but we were travelling fast and the night was dark. Not the sort of dark I’d grown to like, either. This darkness was like quicksand.

  Henson looked in the rear-view mirror again, past us to the receding road. ‘We’ve definitely given ’em the slip,’ he said. ‘Vultures.’

  ‘What?’ Graham leant forward in his seat.

  ‘Gwendolyne Meyers.’

  ‘The girl from the telly? She’s here?’ Graham’s voice was thin. He turned around and squinted through the window.

  ‘She was . . . Anyway, she doesn’t matter.’

  A road sign appeared through the windscreen, illuminated by the headlights of the car. Welonga: 22 kilometres. What? We were going to Welonga? Mum squeezed my hand. Her palm was clammy. I could smell the alcohol coming off her, sour and metallic, and tried not to look at her free hand clawing at her ribs. I wondered how long it had been since she’d had a drink.

  As if she’d heard me, she said in a voice so quiet only I could hear her, ‘Baby girl, Mama’s dry as a bone.’ She sounded plaintive, like a kitten mewling. Beside me, Graham’s fingers ghosted over the door handle. He caught my eye and I frowned. We were going too fast. Sergeant Henson cleared his throat.

  ‘Worked a case at Bondi once.’

  A whimper from Mum, and nothing from Graham or me. My mouth was a desert.

  ‘Chap lived in a flat right on the beach, top floor. Had a coop on the rooftop where he trained carrier pigeons for drug trafficking. A few grams of smack in little envelopes tied onto their backs like saddles. Ingenious, really. Till he got caught. Twenty-five to life in Long Bay.’

  Was he taunting me? Telling me about the other criminals he had put behind bars so I knew what company I was in? Or just making conversation, like we were out for a Sunday drive?

  ‘Anyway, make sure you wear sunscreen,’ Sergeant Henson said. ‘That midday sun at the beach is a bugger. Roast you like a pig on a spit, it will.’

  I think my heart must have heard him first because it started to beat faster even before my mind understood what he was saying. By the time he’d finished the sentence my face was wet. Graham and Mum both grabbed at me and we all held on to some part of the other. I was gasping for breath but trying to do it quietly; I didn’t want to make a sound in case it made him change his mind. It all felt too fragile and I didn’t trust it, how easily it had come from him.

  Freedom.

  ‘Are you saying we can go? You are letting us leave? All of us?’ Graham sounded strangled.

  ‘Yes. You acted in self-defence, Sarah,’ Sergeant Henson said. ‘You have no charges to answer to. Any of you. Go to Bondi.’ His voice broached no argument.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, or tried to say. The words dried up but Henson nodded at me anyway.

  ‘Thank you,’ Graham repeated. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said my mother. ‘I still can’t.’

  chapter fifty

  At the Greyhound terminal in Welonga, Sergeant Henson stood in the middle of the road and watched the tail-light of the bus as it travelled into the distance. The sun was coming up now, bleeding orange and pink into the sky, and from where he stood it looked as though the bus was driving right into it. The horizon was an indistinct line, and he hoped it would stay that way for the young girl on the bus. That her world would always seem infinite, land and sky an unfenced pasture for her to roam.

  Behind him, Susannah lay across a row of plastic chairs with a picnic rug from Gertie’s car pulled over her. Empty coffee cups littered the floor beneath her. She was smoking, but almost asleep, and she offered no resistance as Sergeant Henson plucked the butt from between her fingers and ground it out under his shoe. He offered her a hand but she just looked at him blankly, so he bent and picked her up, blanket and all, and carried her back to the car. He had rung ahead to Welonga South Clinic to tell them he was bringing her in, and had written his home number, station number and the number for the clinic down on a piece of paper for Sarah and Graham to take with them. He held it out and they had both reached for it, but Sarah let Graham take it.

  ‘We’ll call every day,’ Graham said, ‘and we’ll wait for her in Sydney. When she’s well again, we’ll go somewhere else. Maybe we could even come and visit her.’ He sounded unsure though, and Henson couldn’t blame him. If he was either of them, he’d never come back. As for a reunion with a healthy Susannah, he sincerely hoped they would get that. But she was a sick woman and an addicted woman, and he was not an optimistic man by nature. Still, by the laws of probability, Sarah was due some good fortune now. Heaven knew there had been precious little of it in her life so far.

  While he drove, Sergeant Henson listened to the static crackle of his police radio, lying on the passenger seat next to him. The reception wasn’t very good, a fact which he was thankful for. He didn’t really want to know what was being said about him yet. He didn’t expect his welcome back in Banville would be warm. Actually, that was the understatement of the century. A shit storm was what he was driving into, and this one was cyclonic. But it was not the first, and probably not the last he would weather.

  He passed a roadside truck stop advertising a $5.50 breakfast plate, and thought of Crane, probably enjoying his breakfast at the pub right now. He would have to buy him a beer before he left. In fact, he should probably buy him a whole keg. It was Crane who had tipped him off that Gwendolyne Meyers and her crew were on their way to the hospital last night.

  Henson had been at the station interviewing Marjorie when Tommy called him and said he was in Graham Knight’s basement, and that Sarah Vale was with him. Henson had left immediately, and radioed Crane on the Banville local channel to tell him there had been a major development, and he would be waylaid at the hospital for a while. He said that he would explain later, and Crane had said he would stay at the crime scene at the creek. The other officers from Sydney and the forensics staff who had come in were all using their regular channel to communicate, so Henson expected only Crane to receive the message he delivered. But he had forgotten about Roberts, who had not handed in his radio yet. Roberts, who he had fired just hours earlier.

  A short while later, Crane had noticed a sudden exodus from the crime scene at the creek. He watched as Gwendolyne Meyers, her crew, and a host of journalists from other channels and the papers were led off by a smug and self-important Roberts, their convoy of cars pulling away with much haste and squealing of tyres, and put two and two together. He rang the hospital to tell Henson to expect company.

  Henson stopped only once on his journey home, to drop Susannah off at the clinic. He had delivered her into the hands of the nurses and then left straight away, not wanting to see whatever came next for her. He had done what he could. When he pulled into his own driveway, Henson sat for a moment before getting out of the car. It had long been his habit to take this time before entering his house to process and package up the events of the working day, to shed his skin as a police officer so he could walk in his front door and just be Bob, husband of Gertie. But some things that happened could not be cast off; things that clung like barnacles to rock. All you could do with those things was accept that they were there t
o stay, a part of your consciousness now; mired in your grey matter for good. And then you had to find some peace with knowing them. A way of being in the world with all the awful that could not be unseen, coexisting with it.

  Knowing that Gertie would be waiting on the other side of the door when he came home brought peace a little closer. In fact, knowing that she would be there was just as important as her presence itself. She would talk if he wanted to talk, or not talk if that’s what he chose. She would be around, and she would give a shit, and she would watch over him like a sentinel in a tower.

  Some people seemed to think they could find some sort of peace for themselves if only they were alone; isolated in a secluded cabin in the woods. Sergeant Henson thought that, actually, those conditions were not conducive to peace at all. For him, peace came more easily when he heard Gertie laughing on the phone in the next room, or turned the corner of the supermarket aisle and saw her ahead of him there, peering at the label on a bottle of laundry detergent. He found peace in this silly, pretty town, where there was no such thing as seclusion and anonymity was as brief as a wink. He found peace in being the opposite of alone.

  He knew this was not a requisite for everyone. But nevertheless, Sergeant Henson let that be his last wish for Sarah Vale. Wherever she ended up, may she always have someone who loved her on the other side of the door.

  chapter fifty-one

  On Sunday morning, Tommy woke up in the spare room at Sergeant Henson and Gertie’s house to the smell of bacon cooking. He was dressed only in his underwear beneath the blankets, and a clean pair of shorts and a t-shirt were folded at the end of the bed. New, with the tags still on. Outside, the sun was shining. The rain had passed, leaving a green so bright in the trees and grass that it almost hurt Tommy’s eyes to look at it. Just in time for the Grevillea Festival.