by Garry Disher
‘You people really should have paid more attention to Ruth.’ Auhl couldn’t help himself.
Hince tried to rally. ‘If what you’re saying is correct, that money’s rightfully ours.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Claire said. ‘We’ll find it long before you lot get your grubby little hands on it.’
‘I expect it would come in handy about now,’ Auhl said. ‘Barristers’ fees, victims demanding compensation. Not to mention ordinary greed.’
‘My father has dementia. He’s not liable.’
‘Your father is a rapist,’ said Claire.
Adam Hince drew himself up. ‘Either way, it was my father who did those murders. Not me. Not my mother.’
‘We have the gun, Adam,’ Claire said.
Hince said warily, ‘So what?’
‘Your mother’s prints are on it. She was there. Pulled the trigger for all we know.’
‘Or all three of you were there.’
Judith had said not, though, and the mix of emotions on Adam Hince’s face bore that out.
‘Not really all that bright, your father,’ Auhl said. ‘Your mother knew she couldn’t trust him to get it right.’
Hince looked like a man realising he was now truly alone. ‘She would never hurt anyone.’
Then Auhl felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Fished it out, saw the number for the crime-scene manager. Excused himself and took the call in the corridor.
‘About the house in Skye?’ queried the technician. ‘We’re wondering if we were properly briefed.’
Auhl said patiently, ‘We’re hoping you’ll find evidence of a double homicide, plus cash and jewellery concealed under the floorboards or inside the walls.’
But just then Auhl felt a prickle of…what? Not alarm: anticipation. The feeling opening like a late flower as the forensics guy said, ‘But someone’s already searched the place.’
Floorboards prised up, he told Auhl. A wall panel removed.
41
THEY WERE FINISHED by mid-afternoon, charges laid.
Auhl dragged himself onto a Swanston Street tram, the weekend’s adrenaline rush depleted. Thinking now only of Neve Fanning lying in hospital. Pia Fanning in fear of the prospect of living with her father. Lang with his broken jaw, his home a crime scene.
Not wanting to return to an empty house, he wandered down to the private gallery in Rathdowne Street. ‘Just looking,’ he said. But before he quite realised it he was buying a little Charles Blackman drawing of a schoolgirl. Was it a treat, a reward?
He left the gallery, faintly dazed, with a feeling that his Sunday was filling up strangely. And almost immediately experienced an odd echo of the case just closed. A poster on a side wall—rock concerts, experimental theatre, pub gigs and lost dogs—and a word catching his eye. Assemble. It was a flyer for a march on Parliament, but Auhl saw only Rex Osprey and the deluded neophytes of the Assemblies of Jehovah International.
He called Claire Pascal. ‘Fancy a trip to Frankston tomorrow?’
‘Sorry. Got some patching up to do.’
*
SO AUHL MADE THE trip alone on Monday, an Uber delivering him to the public hospital by 10.00 a.m. He asked for Lang’s room and was directed to a small ward. Lang still looked dazed, but recognised him, and cast a reassuring look at the young woman with him, who proved to be the daughter. After the introductions Auhl said, ‘Mr Lang, did anyone visit you in the past couple of days? A stranger?’
Lang nodded.
Scouting trip, thought Auhl. ‘Did this person give a name?’
Lang gestured at his daughter, turning his wrist in a circle, and she reached for a notepad and pen on the bedside table. He wrote, printing the words neatly: Can’t remember.
‘Can you give me a description?’
Woman about 30, a bit alternative, tattoos of birds on neck.
Auhl smiled. ‘Did she say what she wanted?’
Her brother used to live in my house. Dead now. She just wanted to see it.
I bet, thought Auhl. ‘Did she say how she found you?’
Phoned house removalists.
As I should have done, Auhl thought—if it had occurred to me that the house was still intact.
Auhl didn’t know how many tens of thousands of dollars Robert Shirlow had stashed in the old house, but he must have told his sister Carmen about it.
Auhl didn’t think any of it was rightfully the property of the Hince family. And it shouldn’t become the property of the state government, or languish in a police evidence safe. But nor should Carmen keep it all.
He climbed into the car and phoned her hotel: she’d checked out. He texted her: Mary’s sister Ruth should get half.
He didn’t expect a reply, but around the Ringwood off-ramp his phone pinged: You think?
Feeling a little buoyed, Auhl sat back and smiled. Carmen might have been having fun with him, of course; but he sensed he’d got her thinking.
He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
42
NOW IT WAS EARLY November.
Melbourne Cup Day came and went. The spring sun grew stronger, gearing up for summer, and all the world including retail knew Christmas was approaching fast. Helen Colfax’s detectives took on new cold cases and wrapped up or put on hold current ones. The Hinces and Osprey were the responsibility of the OPP now.
Sometimes Auhl happened to encounter Jerry Debenham in the police building and receive the narrowed-gaze treatment that said, I still don’t trust you—but Colfax said Debenham treated everyone that way, and meanwhile Janine Neill’s toxicology results had come back: hypoglycaemic seizure, the theory being that Alec Neill had fed his non-diabetic wife a high dose of some glucose-lowering drug.
Pia Fanning still had her leg in a cast but was recovering quickly. Auhl phoned her regularly, and flew to Adelaide for a couple of days every fortnight or so. He’d sit quietly watching Neve or trying to talk her out of her coma, before heading to the Deanes’ rented apartment where he’d read to Pia, chat, kid around. He didn’t encounter Lloyd Fanning, but apparently he’d called in to see his daughter. Not his wife.
Pia said, ‘If I’m better at Christmas he wants to take me to Bali for the whole of the holidays.’
Auhl cocked his head to read her. She was getting good at flat expressions. ‘You don’t want to go.’
‘I want to be here in case Mum wakes up.’
‘Tell him that.’
‘He doesn’t listen.’ Pause. ‘I have to go and live with him when I’m better, don’t I?’
‘I won’t lie to you. Yes.’
‘New school, new everything,’ Pia said, her eyes filling.
‘When your mum’s better and her lawyer can swing into action, it’s possible you won’t have to live with him permanently.’
‘That’s not what he says. He says she’s going to jail. He says I’m his forever.’
THEN ON A FRIDAY IN December Auhl let himself into Chateau Auhl, dumped his keys, wallet and jacket and dodged around Cynthia’s sinuous greeting, and found Bec in the kitchen. She’d just got home from work, her GewGaws T-shirt wrinkled, damp with perspiration.
‘A woman called a minute ago.’
Auhl stiffened whenever he heard these words. He’d think: the hospital. But usually it was a witness, a colleague.
‘Who was she?’
A short wait while Bec gulped down a glass of water and gasped and swiped her hand across her mouth. ‘She said she was from Pia’s school. She wants a word with you.’
‘Concerning?’
‘She was a bit close-mouthed, Dad, but I said you’d be home about now, is that okay?’ With a twirl of her fingers, Bec pounded up the stairs.
Auhl glanced at his watch: 5.30 p.m. He wanted a beer, but would that give the wrong impression? He sat in his favourite chair instead and coaxed Cynthia onto his lap.
ANSWERED THE KNOCK when it came, finding a young woman on his front step. Broad shoulders, short hair. Wary, yet apologetic and
tentative, too. As if she wasn’t sure of Auhl, wasn’t sure of herself.
‘Are you Mr Auhl?’
‘I am.’
‘Mrs Neve Fanning and her daughter Pia lived here until recently?’
‘They did.’
She chewed at her bottom lip. ‘Pia told me about you. She said you were a policeman.’
‘Yes, I am.’
Further doubt and reluctance, the woman assessing him, a practical figure in a flowery skirt and plain T-shirt, a slim document wallet under her arm. Not ready to enter his house yet. Auhl said, ‘You know my name but I don’t know yours, or how you relate to Pia.’
She nodded abruptly, shot out her hand. ‘Tina Acton, school counsellor.’
‘Pia’s school here in Carlton?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Auhl gestured. ‘Let’s continue this inside.’
But Acton was still not ready to move. ‘Is Pia here?’
‘She and her mother are still in Adelaide.’
Acton closed her eyes, took a breath and stepped past Auhl into the hallway. Then she stopped and he collided with her.
‘Sorry, but I need to know, were you and Mrs Fanning, er—’
‘Romantically involved? No,’ said Auhl. ‘Please. Come in.’
He took Acton through to the sitting room. ‘Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’
Acton shook her head. ‘Water, please.’
Water was fetched and when they were seated and the cat had made itself comfortable in Acton’s lap—Acton recoiling a little—Auhl said, ‘Does this concern something Pia said or did? Something you noticed?’
‘You’re police, right?’
‘Yes.’
A slow, troubled nod. Acton began to pat Cynthia. ‘Well, the police might need to be involved.’ She darted him a look.
Get on with it, he thought.
‘A couple of days before Mrs Fanning came and, er, took Pia out of school and, er, didn’t bring her back, I gave a talk to the Year 6 kids about appropriate adult behaviour.’ She stopped, took a breath, carried on: ‘Pia came up to me afterwards and said her dad sometimes touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable.’
She stopped as if afraid she’d said too much.
Auhl knew at once the reason for Acton’s hesitancy. Mandated to report Pia’s claim, she’d either failed to do it or she’d acted too late. He said harshly, ‘Spit it out.’
Acton gave him a pained, twisted smile and said, ‘He told Pia it was their special secret. She shouldn’t tell anyone.’
‘She told you.’
‘Some kids find it easier to confide in someone less close, especially in the early stages.’
Auhl let his fury show. ‘Cut to the chase, Tina. Did you or didn’t you report it?’
‘Look, I’m really sorry. I have now and I didn’t mean to leave it so long, but I’m new in this job and I needed to be absolutely sure and then, you know, everything seemed to happen at once…’
‘Did you tell Mrs Fanning?’
A whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘The day before she ran off with Pia.’
‘What exactly did you tell her?’
‘I told her what Pia told me.’
‘And what did she say? I need to know. Stop farting around.’
Acton hunched her shoulders and the words came in a flood. ‘She said she had doubts. She was beating herself up over it. She said one night she saw her husband leaning over Pia in bed, touching himself, and she once heard Pia say, “You’re my special pussy,” in her sleep. And apparently last Christmas Pia tongue-kissed one of Neve’s brothers when he gave her a present.’
Acton rocked in distress. ‘I wish I’d done something sooner. This is all on me.’
Auhl wasn’t going to absolve her. He idly wondered how the single expert, Kelso, would have responded if Neve had related the ‘special pussy’ incident. Asked if she liked cats?
‘Will you attest to this in court? Will you make a statement?’
‘Oh God yes,’ Acton said, as though let off the hook. ‘Absolutely.’
SHE LEFT. AUHL returned to the sitting room, too agitated to sit still. Stepped into the kitchen and poured himself a shaky glass of wine, and suddenly Bec was there, curious, sensitive to the moods of the house and her father.
‘What did she want?’
Auhl told her, then they sat together at the table and finished the bottle, Bec spitting rage. He should do something, tell someone. Pia wouldn’t be able to stay with her grandparents forever. Soon her father would have a clear shot at her.
Auhl was not heated. He felt icy cold as he traced the next steps in his mind. Report Lloyd Fanning to the sex crimes unit at St Kilda Road. They would refer him to the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team in Geelong. Their investigation would drag, given that two essential witnesses were presently in South Australia, one in a coma. And Lloyd Fanning would call in his lawyer, who would refer the SOCIT officers to Neve’s behaviour.
‘Abducting’ his daughter from his house one weekend—with the help of a policeman, mind you. Abducting his daughter from school. Stealing a car. Trashing his house. A woman capable of all that would also be capable of putting ideas in her daughter’s head. Talk to the eminent psychiatrist, Kelso—he knew exactly what Neve Fanning was like.
Auhl was cold, but that didn’t stop the recriminations. He should have suspected earlier. Seen something. Pressed Neve. Her damned politeness and modest expectations and fear. Had she harboured suspicions but buried them? Hadn’t let herself think the man she’d married would do that to their daughter?
AUHL FLEW TO ADELAIDE on Boxing Day with a bike, which Pia accepted wanly. Her father’s present: a card from Bali containing fifty dollars. Then Auhl took them all to visit Neve. Responding well to physical stimulation, according to the specialist: eyes fluttering, her arm jerking away if poked or squeezed. Could wake from the coma any day.
Pia hugged Auhl when he left. Asked after Bec and Cynthia, and nodded politely when he told her there’d always be a bed for her if she visited Melbourne.
AUHL LIKED MELBOURNE in January: less inner-city foot and car traffic, less noise, fewer toxins to starve the eucalypts and garden flowers, a sense that strangers might even smile if they encountered you walking at the end of a long, unrushed day.
‘Meanwhile life goes on,’ Helen Colfax said. She tapped a sheaf of papers together. ‘Are you growing a beard?’
‘Trying to,’ Auhl said, fingering the wiry, itchy clumps of silvery growth.
The office was quiet, Josh Bugg on holidays until late January, Claire Pascal and her husband in Sydney. As for Colfax, she liked to leave work early and head for the beach. Brown arms, brown neck, showing beneath a plain T-shirt today. Red nose and frizzy hair. Rubbing cream into the backs of her hands when Auhl sauntered in to ask for time off.
Asking about his beard was a way for her to gather her thoughts. ‘Time off, you say.’
‘Just a few days.’
‘You’ve only been here nine months.’
‘True.’
‘Then again, our cases are cold.’
‘Almost frigid.’
She gave him a week.
43
BALI WAS HUMID AND overcrowded. The only decent accommodation Auhl could find was a rundown hotel near the airport, but it didn’t matter. He was not holidaying. Early the next morning he hired a taxi, giving the driver an address he’d found in the handbag in the bedside table of Neve Fanning’s hospital room.
The taxi took him north-west, hills in the distance, the towns giving way to roadside shanties, paddy fields behind them on either side. Whenever the taxi pulled up at stop signs, kids flocked to Auhl’s window, offering cling-wrapped copies of Newsweek, the Straits Times, the International Herald Tribune and other newspapers and magazines. Taking pot luck, Auhl bought a November 2016 issue of the Melbourne Age. ‘Huh,’ he told the driver. ‘Donald Trump’s been elected President o
f the US.’
The driver grinned and accelerated past a brightly decorated three-wheeled taxi. Auhl placed the newspaper on the seat beside him and closed his eyes briefly.
Then the taxi was climbing into the hills. The road was narrow, busy with small Japanese and Korean cars heading down to the main road. Auhl wondered: what came first, narrow roads or narrow cars? They reached a handful of shanties and, realising he hadn’t eaten, Auhl asked the driver to stop beside an old man pushing a cart. He bought dumplings, an unleavened bread parcel and a bottle of water. He offered the taxi driver a dumpling. The driver shook his head. A short distance away, downslope of the cart, a man was washing animal entrails in a ditch. Auhl asked the taxi driver about it. ‘Is goat,’ said the driver, ‘be for to welcome new child.’
They drove on, past the shanties to more paddy fields, new rice shoots in still ponds, water rushing along the drainage ditches, a couple of large family compounds at the far end. Soon they reached the outskirts of a town in the folds of the coastal range, the driver slowing, saying, ‘There house,’ and pointing to a villa upslope of the coast road, at the highest edge of a village.
But as the driver began to accelerate, Auhl spotted a walled compound, a sign on the gate reading Lotus Flower Yoga Retreat. He asked the driver to stop, paid the man the fare and a hefty tip, and got out.
The retreat was an upmarket place, a huge house set deep inside a terraced garden. A security guard dressed in black with white armbands in a booth beside the front gate. The signs were in English, French and German. Auhl nodded to the guard, who seemed unsurprised to see a Westerner arrive so early, and he walked in as if he was known, expected, welcome.
It was not his destination; it was a short cut and useful cover. He walked around the side of the villa to where the rear wall looked onto the village and found a back gate. Another guard, equally unsurprised. Auhl left the grounds and continued to climb towards Lloyd Fanning’s house. Paddy fields to his right, haphazard little streets on his right. Small houses, shuttered shops, walled villas with family temples shaded by coconut palms.