Wild Justice

by Liz Fielding

  Just as the bride, Claudia's character, and her father, played by Edward, are due to set off for the church, a pretty young girl arrives and in a strong Australian accent declares herself to be the illegitimate daughter of the father of the bride. The bride's father has a heart attack. Will the wedding take place? Will the father die? Is the girl telling the truth? Who was her mother?

  Fizz wished she had paid more attention at the script conference. Knew who had come up with particular storyline. But the small cold spot in the pit of her stomach told her that she was clutching at straws; she let her mind drift back to the first morning that Melanie had visited the radio station and knew that the answer to everything had been staring her in the face all along.

  When Fizz had shown Melanie around the studio that first morning she had taken every opportunity to probe for some clue as to Luke's motives in supporting the station, still not quite able to believe that Melanie was really keen to take part in Holiday Bay. 'I'm surprised you're so interested in radio,' she said, angling for some lead.

  'Oh, yes. My mother loved it, you see. No lines to learn, no make-up, wearing comfortable old clothes. It was all in the voice, she said.' Melanie's face momentarily clouded. 'I have some recordings of her, Fizz. She was really wonderful. She was always being offered parts in films and on television but she wouldn't take them. She said she enjoyed the anonymity of radio. That's why I was so pleased to get the chance to try it for myself.'

  'Was your father an actor too?'

  Melanie's cheeks flushed a little. 'My mother never talked about him.' She saw Fizz frown slightly. 'They weren't married, you see.' Fizz, about to say something casual about such things hardly mattering these days to cover the girl's embarrassment, suddenly realised that to Melanie it did. It mattered deeply. 'I thought she might have been ashamed of him. I asked her once if that was the reason she wouldn't tell me who he was.'

  Fizz, heartily wishing she had never brought up the subject, was noncommittal. 'Did you?'

  'I don't think I've ever seen her so angry. Then she cried a bit and then she hugged me and said she wasn't in the least bit ashamed of him. She said he was a good man, but it was impossible for them to be together. He hadn't abandoned me, he hadn't even known about me.'

  'She never told him?' Fizz was shocked.

  'He had a family. A wife who really needed him.'

  Melanie had needed him too, Fizz thought, with a cold anger for such selfishness. 'Is that why you've come to Broomhill? To look for him?'

  Melanie stared at her. 'Broomhill? Heaven's I shouldn't think he's here. I imagine he's in Australia somewhere. I mean, why else would she have gone there in the first place?'

  Why else? 'Oh, look, I'm sorry. I thought Luke said your family had come from this area. I must have misunderstood.'

  Perhaps.

  Fizz got to her feet. But there was nothing here to explain her father's collapse. And yet standing in the doorway of her bedroom, listening to Melanie explain what had happened, she had been so sure that there was something. "He just said, 'Juliet', then he sort of crumpled up…"

  She paced the studio. Maybe it was nothing. Except that she had been so certain that Luke was using Holiday Bay in some way. Tonight he had as good as admitted as much. Tonight. Her mind shied away from what had happened tonight. But it was a seriously elaborate exercise just to pay back a catty remark. Rather like using a pile-driver to crack a nut.

  Juliet. Who was Juliet? She'd heard the name recently.

  She went through the scripts again, certain somehow that the answer must lie there. Each of the actors had their own way of highlighting their lines and she automatically sorted them into individual characters. Then she realised that if there was any clue to be found on the scripts it must be on either her father's or on Melanie's.

  Melanie had highlighted her lines in orange Day-Glo and they were easy to pick out, but the last page was missing.

  She looked around, saw the corner of white paper sticking out from beneath the piano. She pulled it out and felt her heart contract as she saw the alteration to the last line and everything finally fell into place.

  Click. Luke's antagonism towards her father. The remarks that she didn't quite understand. References to the Beaumont's lack of family values.

  Click. The press cutting that Jim had given her. It wasn't Claudia's scathing remark about Melanie that was important. It was the reporter's comment. I was immediately struck by her likeness to our own dear Melanie Brett. Her father had seen the likeness at once. Had seen it and remembered something, or maybe someone, that had sent him in search of a drink.

  Click. None of this had been about Claudia. Oh, Luke was happy to use Holiday Bay to embarrass her, make her pay for an offhand remark made in those vulnerable minutes after a performance when she had still been riding high on excitement and adrenalin. But she had just been a sideshow to the main attraction.

  His real reason for involving Melanie in the show was to use the plot to expose Edward Beaumont not only as an adulterer, but a man who would abandon his child.

  She stuffed her fist in her mouth to stop the scream of anguish as she sank back onto the chair. "I must have misunderstood." The words were a hollow echo in her head.

  She hadn't misunderstood. Had he meant to warn her when he told her that Melanie's family came from the Broomhill area?

  Or was it a coded message that he had assumed she would pass on to her father along with the details of their discussions about sponsorship? Did it matter?

  She looked again at the paper in her hand. The name Jill Brady had been crossed through. Juliet Carey written above it.

  "I shouldn't have changed the name." That's what Melanie had said. She read the lines.

  "Of course you knew my mother. Her stage name was Juliet Carey. And when she was pregnant you walked out and left her. Well now she's dead and I'm here to tell you that I'm your daughter and I'm going to make sure everyone knows it."

  Art imitating life she thought as she remembered where she had heard the name. Luke's sister had been called Juliet. Juliet Carey? What else? And with the substitution of the name it was life that had imitated art, right down to the collapse of the accused man.

  And now she had to come to terms with the fact that the man she had so recently made love with, the man who had brought her back to life so that she was still agonisingly aware of every nerve-tingling touch and caress, the obliterating joy when the final breach of all her defences had made them one, the man who had taken over her mind and stolen first her heart and then her body, had quite deliberately and callously put her father in hospital.

  Revenge.

  It was all there, easy to see when you knew what you were looking for. Claudia's career. Her radio station. And her father's reputation. Even now she could not believe he meant to risk her father's life, not if he was Melanie's father too. Even he couldn't be that cruel. Or maybe he could, because it was plain that Melanie didn't know. Luke had found out somehow, but he hadn't told his niece.

  Fizz wanted to weep. Her eyes were hot and painful, but she couldn't cry, couldn't do anything to let out the hurt. Instead she put her head on her lap and covered it with her arms and prayed. For her father, for Melanie. For some kind of answer.

  'Fizz?' She stiffened, but didn't move. 'Fizz, I'm sorry. I never meant this to happen.' Luke took a step into the room. 'You must believe me.'

  'Must I?' She lifted her head with difficulty, it was so heavy as she turned to look at him, gaunt beneath the unforgiving lights. She loved him so much, wanted so much to believe him. But her father was lying in hospital with tubes in his veins and monitors bleeping all around him. And Luke had put him there. 'How did you get Melanie to change the name?' she asked.

  For a moment he remained silent, then with the smallest lift of his shoulder, he said, 'She was having trouble with the line. She said it didn't sound convincing enough. She wanted it to be perfect.'

  'She's supposed to be actress. Or did you put the doubt in he
r mind?' She regarded him steadily. 'It wouldn't have been difficult. She thinks you walk on water.'

  He didn't answer. He didn't have to. 'I suggested a little "method" exercise, you know the kind of thing.' The dark hollows in his cheeks seemed to deepen as he remembered. 'I suggested she should try and imagine how she would feel if Edward Beaumont really had been the man who had abandoned her mother, had abandoned her.'

  'And so she changed the name in the script.'

  'It worked so well that Mel telephoned the scriptwriters and asked if they minded if she kept it that way.'

  And of course they would have been only too pleased to help. 'And if she hadn't made it that easy for you?'

  'A resourceful man will always find a way, Fizz.'

  'And you are surely the most resourceful man I've ever met.'

  'Too damned resourceful for my own good. I didn't mean this to happen. The recording was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I thought I had plenty of time to see Edward. I left a message with his secretary tell him I wanted to see him in the morning, that it was urgent. I was going to tell him everything.'

  'And that makes it all right, does it?' she flared.

  'Nothing can ever make it right. But will you try to understand? My sister died because she decided, in the end, that she had to see your father. Confront him, I suppose. We'll never know what she intended to say to him. She carried that with her to the grave.' He came into the room, crouched down in front of her. 'Will you let me tell you?'

  'Why should I listen to you?' she said, stiffly, withdrawing against the chair, pulling away her hand as he reached for her. She couldn't allow him to touch her. Not yet. She wasn't strong enough for that.

  'Because I'll do everything I can to put things right. Because I…' He stopped himself. 'No.' He stood up. 'You're right. I won't try to justify what I did. It isn't possible.'

  'No, it isn't.' She closed her eyes, desperately, desperately tired but knowing that there could be no escape from her nightmare in sleep. 'It was the newspaper wasn't it?' she said. 'Saying how alike they were? I thought that was why you didn't like my family, because of what Claudia said to that reporter.'

  'I didn't like Claudia because of what Claudia said, although I have to admit that she improves with acquaintance. It wasn't the newspaper article that gave me the link, Fizz, although afterwards it seemed to confirm what I already suspected.'

  'How?' she demanded. 'How can you be sure it's true? Melanie told me that she didn't know who her father was.'

  'She didn't. Still doesn't.' He hesitated. 'Look can we get out of here?'

  She lifted her head, eased her neck. 'I feel as if I've been beaten all over.'

  'I'm not surprised. It's been quite a night, one way and another…' He stopped as she turned to look at him, her bright eyes dimmed with reproach.

  'A triumph all round for the resourceful Mr Devlin.'

  'A triumph suggests the attainment of every desire, Fizz. This -' He lifted his hand in a dismissive gesture. 'This is a Pyrrhic victory. Come on, I'll take you home.' He reached out to her, offered her a hand. But she didn't take it and after a moment he let it fall and stepped back to give her room. 'You can't stay here,' he insisted.

  'How did you know where I was?' she asked, getting to her feet. 'Did Claudia tell you?'

  'No. She said you were tucked up in bed fast asleep. Somehow I didn't quite believe that after what had happened you would simply have gone to sleep. And you always come here when you're unhappy. Maybe that's why you spend so much time working.'

  'Don't try to psychoanalyse me, Luke. I came here to find some answers to the questions that have been bothering me ever since you came to town.' She frowned. 'How did you get in, anyway?'

  'The tide's out. I went down onto the beach and climbed up the inspection ladder. That's why I'm in such a mess.'

  She looked at him then, really looked at him and saw the sand and green smears of sea slime on his hands, his jacket, his wet shoes. She had climbed the safety ladder once, when she was about ten, desperate to prove that she was as tough as any boy in town. She had made it, just, but she still remembered the mouth drying terror as she had to let go with one hand and swing out into space to make a grab for the handrail.

  'Idiot!'

  His mouth twisted in self-mockery. 'I think we've already established that.'

  Outside the night was clear and bright, the moon lighting a sea curled with tiny wisps of mist about the legs of the pier and they walked its length in silence, a clear six inches of space between them. He saw her into his car, taking pains not to touch her even though he wanted to grab her, hold her, promise that he would never do anything to hurt her ever again.

  It took every shred of self-control to stop himself, to wait. But self-control was all he had left and didn't speak again until she had unlocked her front door, turning to bar his way as he attempted to follow her inside.

  But he wasn't going to leave her. Not until she had heard him out.

  'We have unfinished business, Fizz,' he reminded her, putting his hand out to stop her shutting the door. 'Go and sit by the fire, you must be frozen. I'll make you a cup of tea.' She glared at him, standing her ground. 'Or would you prefer something stronger? We never did have that drink.'

  Fizz opened her mouth to argue. Then remembered boldly telling Claudia that she had stopped hiding from her emotions. 'Tea,' she conceded.

  Ten minutes later, Luke put a mug of hot, sugar laden tea into her hands and when she had curled up in an armchair he took the one opposite. For a while neither of them spoke.

  'Luke?' Fizz prompted him after a while and was aware of him coming back from some distant place, far away inside his head as he looked up, met her gaze. 'I think you'd better tell me the whole story.'

  'Only Juliet knows the whole story but I'll tell you what I know, why I believe Edward is Melanie's father.' He paused to gather himself. 'It began when Mel asked me to take her to see your father in The Merchant of Venice last year. When he toured Australia.'

  'That's not much of a reason -'

  'You said you'd let me tell you. This is the beginning.' He waited until he was sure she would listen. 'I was happy enough to take her to the theatre,' he continued, 'but since it didn't seem quite her kind of thing I teased her a bit about having secret ambitions about being a serious actress.'

  'Why?' Fizz asked. 'Why did you tease her?'

  He shrugged. 'Isn't that what uncles are supposed to do? I know it was patronising, but most of her contemporaries want to be pop stars. I'm afraid she rather floored me by saying that was exactly what she wanted.'

  'To be a serious actress?'

  He nodded. 'And in her eyes the very best was Edward Beaumont, which was why she wanted to go and see him. I professed surprise that she had even heard of him and that's when she told me.' Fizz waited in silence for a long time.

  'What? What did she tell you, Luke?'

  He stirred. 'Apparently Juliet never missed him when he appeared on the television.'

  'Juliet? Melanie's mother?'

  'Yes, her mother. My dear, sweet sister. Apparently she watched all his old films, had videos of that drama series he did years ago that won him every award going. Melanie told me that whenever Edward Beaumont was on the television he moved her mother to tears and if he was that good… ' He looked across at her. 'Tell me, Fizz, is he that good? Really?' She didn't answer. Her father had charm, charisma and a feel for good commercial drama that filled theatres. Olivier he was not. 'No,' he said, apparently satisfied with her silence. 'I didn't think so.'

  Fizz turned away, unable to meet his eyes. 'It isn't my opinion that matters is it? It was your sister who was his biggest fan.'

  'Yes, unfortunately and after Mel had told me how much Juliet liked him I thought she might like a chance to see him performing live. She lived a couple of hours drive up country so I rang her and suggested she come down to Sydney for a few days. She could go shopping with Melanie, see the play. A treat from her little brothe
r,' he added, bitterly.

  Fizz waited a moment, then unable to contain herself, demanded, 'Well? What did she say?'

  'She didn't say much at all. Just that she'd think about it and call me back. Then after a day or two she rang and said she had a lot to do and didn't think she could spare the time.'

  'But I thought -'

  'Then she rang again and said she'd changed her mind. I should have realised then that something was up. She sounded excited, like Mel. Like she used to be.' He stared down at his hands, as if seeking some answer in the bottom of his mug. 'After I bought the tickets she phoned again and said she was sorry, but she wasn't up to the drive. I offered to drive up and fetch her if she liked, but she was adamant that she didn't want to come and I thought that was that.' He made a small, lost gesture, full of unspoken regret. 'I heard the weather forecast, heavy rain, flash flood warnings, but I didn't pay much attention, there was no reason why I should.'

  'Luke -'

  He didn't seem to hear her. 'I had a late meeting so I changed at the office, picked up Mel and we went straight to the theatre. We met some friends there and went out to supper with them. When I finally got home the answering machine was flashing. It was Juliet. She'd changed her mind, she had to see Edward.' He looked up. 'Just Edward. Not the play, you understand, not Edward Beaumont. Edward. She said she'd meet us at the theatre.' The handle snapped off his mug. 'I don't suppose you've ever seen a flash flood.'

  Fizz didn't think an answer was required, but she shook her head. 'No,' she said.

  'It can be dry where you are. But upcountry the rain will be pouring off the hills, the ground too hard to absorb it quickly. It fills up the dry stream beds and they funnel it into the rivers. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water channelled between steep banks, with nowhere to go but in a great tidal wave downstream taking anything in its path with it. The branches of trees, old tyres, sheep, cattle. Inside the car with the radio on you wouldn't hear the noise. The river might just be a little bit higher than usual at the ford, but you're driving a good four wheel drive motor, no worries. Then the steering goes soft and you turn and look, but by then it's too late. All you see is the wall of thick brown water as it hits the side of the car. And there is nothing you can do. Nothing.'