But there was still no response, and presently he stopped. She just sat there and he put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched and he tried to rub her back. Then he saw her eyes were full of tears. Again.
‘I’m sorry, Nick,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t.’
She started to get out of bed and he took hold of her wrist and said, ‘Wait.’
With sudden energy she pulled her arm from his grip and moved to the side of the bed. He could have held her but he was so angry he didn’t trust himself.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said.
‘I’m not doing anything,’ he said. ‘I just want you to know we have to do something about this, we need some help.’
She slid out of bed, picking up her dressing-gown from the floor and slipping into it as she stood up, so he caught only a glimpse of her lower body.
‘Let’s not talk about this tonight, not on our anniversary,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘Won’t you tell me what you’re afraid of?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything. You keep saying that, and it makes me really upset. I’ve just lost interest for a while, it’s quite common.’
‘This is destroying our marriage, Anna. I want us to go to counselling.’
As if that would automatically fix things. But you had to have some sort of plan. Plans implied hope.
‘I just need more time.’
‘You said that six months ago. There is no more time.’
Her face contorted in anguish. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I can’t wait any longer.’
‘My whole life depends on you. Don’t you still love me?’
He said nothing.
‘Have you found someone else?’
He was on the point of telling her about Wednesday night. But with a strange wailing sound, she turned and ran from the room.
The noise worried him. He stood up, all desire gone, and put on his pyjamas. The sound she’d made had been like an expression of pain. He went down the hall and found the door to Matt’s room was locked. For five minutes he knocked on it gently and spoke to her, but there was no response. If the boy hadn’t been in there he might have broken down the door, but having a child changed things. He went back to bed, thinking about the sound she’d made, her tears, all the emotion coursing through her body, her life. He realised he still loved her, and that this was the problem. If he didn’t love her, everything would be much easier.
TUESDAY
Thirty-eight
A sound woke him, and he saw from the bedside clock it was early morning. Very early. He lay there for a few minutes, remembering what had happened last night with Anna, then thinking about work and Geoff Rochford. The man might be in the same situation as himself, lying awake somewhere in the city, thinking about the hold these people had over him. He wondered what had happened to the real Mr A. Perhaps he was dead. They would have to look at any murders of unidentified men his age in the past week. Suicides, too.
Troy got up and went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water. The door to Matt’s room was open, which surprised him, and he looked in. Anna and the boy were gone. Matt’s change bag was missing too. He raced to the front door and pulled it open. Anna’s car was no longer out the front of the house. The faint odour of exhaust fumes lay in the cold night air. It must have been the sound of her driving away that had woken him.
In the kitchen he found a note on the table, almost two pages long. Anna wrote that she was going away for a while because of the guilt she felt at not being able to fulfil her duties as a wife. She was terrified something might happen to him at work, after the shootings in The Tower. She couldn’t raise this with him because it would make him angry, and she feared his anger. She also wrote she was scared he would no longer love Matt should anything happen to her. And she feared Troy might harm her physically; after the way he had behaved last night, she feared for her safety.
Troy couldn’t follow the note, he couldn’t follow her thoughts. This was not the way things were. He put the letter down, wondering about her state of mind, what she might do to herself and Matt. He did not think of himself as a particularly violent man, yet here she was, writing of fear and terror. If their normal life together could produce such a storm of emotion, he wondered what the sight of the video footage would do if she ever saw it.
‘Jesus,’ he said.
It was a prayer. A short one.
He wondered where she’d go. She had a lot of friends, but most of the really close ones were in Queensland, where she’d grown up. He couldn’t think of anyone in Sydney she’d go to at this time of night, although it all depended on her state of mind, whether the letter marked her lowest ebb or was just a point on a descent into further chaos. He remembered a woman she’d been close to in her nursing days. Sara. But they hadn’t seen her in a while. Maybe the Duttons. He hoped Matt would be all right, told himself that the boy liked sleeping in his capsule in the back of the car, he’d probably be fine. Troy wondered whether to call Anna’s parents in Brisbane. There was a good chance she’d been in touch with them already, maybe even talked about all this. She rang her mother several times a week.
The question was whether to pursue Anna at all. That was his instinct, but he knew there were times when instinct should be resisted. Anna had said in the note she needed to be by herself. Maybe he should respect that. If he went after her, found her and brought her back, they’d only be where they’d been yesterday.
Unless she wanted him to come after her.
For hours these possibilities swirled around his mind, stimulating and exhausting him by turn. He couldn’t help thinking about himself, how weak the blackmail made him, vulnerable because of what was being done to him when he should have been strong for her. Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
At some point, while it was still dark, he fell asleep again. But he awoke at dawn. There was no sign of Anna or Matt, and he thought about calling the Maroubra police. But it was too soon. Maybe later in the morning. It was too early to go to work, so he decided to have a run.
When he reached the beach, some young men were already out on their boards, wearing wetsuits and catching a nice break with a lot of power in it. He watched them for a while and recalled what he’d been doing at their age, in another part of the city, yellow fields and new houses mixed together, trees being cut down here, planted there, new roads and faces, everything always changing as the incoming tides of immigration pushed the population steadily out their way. He remembered the adjustment he’d had to make when he moved to Maroubra, a crowded older suburb next to the permanence of the ocean. All this he’d come to love, but it didn’t seem so solid anymore.
He started to run, keeping to the firm sand between the waterline and the broad swathe of softer yellow to his left. As he ran he prayed that Anna and Matt would return to him, that they be returned. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. The sun, a vivid orange on account of the pollution sitting in the still sky, warmed the right side of his body as he passed other joggers, occasionally recognising someone from the surf club and grunting hello. His heart was bleak but the sound of the waves, the sunlight and the colour, soothed it a little. He ran on the beach for half an hour, then headed for home.
When he turned the corner of their street, Anna’s car was in the driveway. As he got closer he saw that something was wrong with its side: there was a wide gouge running from the crumpled front left corner most of the way down to the back. There was no one else in the street as he stopped running and walked over the damp grass and looked in the windows. Matt was asleep in his seat, his little chest moving up and down. He seemed fine. Anna was in the front, also asleep, her head back against the seat and the side window. They both looked very much at peace.
He watched them for a long time, feeling helpless.
Driving to work later that morning, Troy agonised over what to do about the video. He and Anna had had a long conversation after sh
e woke up. She told him she’d driven around for hours, not knowing where to go. At some point she’d fallen asleep at the wheel, down in Mascot, and sideswiped a concrete wall. She couldn’t remember where. Then she’d driven home and fallen asleep. Crying a lot, she said she loved him very much and realised she needed to see someone, a counsellor. This was a huge breakthrough. After a bit she calmed down. Things were going to be all right, she could see that she had to change. They just needed time. He felt tremendously happy.
He told her he wanted her to call her parents that morning. A look of panic appeared on her face but he insisted. Either her parents or a doctor, that day.
‘You should go up and have a holiday, stay with them,’ he said.
‘No,’ she whispered, putting a hand on his arm. ‘I want to be with you. I love you.’
The thought of her alone with Matt worried him. ‘Ask them down here then,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy the tickets.’
She agreed and he waited while she called them, listened while she set up the visit. After he’d sorted out the flights on the internet, he had a cup of tea with her in the kitchen and they talked some more. She was at peace, the way she used to be. Maybe last night was the low spot, he thought. Nothing lasts forever. We’ve come through something and now it’s going to get better. Anna had made the decision to come back to him.
When Liz Matarazzo turned up with her children, he felt it was safe to go to work.
As he drove he found he was having trouble breathing. There was no way he could risk Anna finding out about his infidelity—not now especially, when everything had changed. And yet he had to do something. He reached the office at ten and asked McIver if he could have a word, still uncertain of what he wanted to say. The place was almost deserted, with only four officers at their desks. McIver was doing some stretching exercises with his left arm, and gazing out the open door behind Troy.
‘Normally a pretty sight, an empty office,’ he said. ‘But we’ve hit the wall on this one. Bloody Geoff Rochford. He was our last hope.’
Troy shifted uneasily. McIver was staring at him, and he wondered if the sergeant could tell what was going on. But it was not possible.
McIver added: ‘I’ve never felt like this before.’ He looked tired, more dispirited than Troy could remember. It was unnatural.
‘What would Jesus do?’ Troy murmured.
‘I’m sorry?’
Troy leaned back and pushed the door shut. Then, taking a deep breath, he told McIver everything. He had no idea where what he was now starting would end, but he could no longer keep it to himself.
As he spoke, McIver watched him seriously, stroking his jaw. Strangely, he didn’t look surprised. Troy kept speaking and as he went on he felt a tremendous sense of relief. Deceit did not come naturally to him. There was no credit due for this: it was just the way he was.
When he finished, there was silence for a while. Then McIver said, ‘You know you’re a bloody idiot.’
‘Things haven’t been good between Anna and me—’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean for not telling me about this before.’ He stood up and Troy wondered what was going to happen. The sergeant began to wave his left arm around in what seemed to be another exercise. As he moved it he said, ‘This explains the leak to the Herald on Friday about the state of the investigation. The people with these pictures must have freaked out when you got tossed. All their hard work for nothing.’ He stopped moving his arm and said, ‘Did you tell Randall about Stone and his union investigation?’
‘Randall knew already. He told me about it.’
McIver began to move his arm again, slowly. ‘Which presumably means other people at Warton Constructions know about it.
Maybe even people at Morning Star.’ He shook his head. ‘Kelly. What a fool.’
‘Randall reckons he doesn’t know who’s behind this. Says he’s being jammed himself.’
McIver waved his good arm, dismissing Randall for the moment. ‘The question is, who’d want to influence the investigation?’ He rubbed his chin. ‘You could say the Russian bloke, or his missing mate Jason. But the problem is, Stone’s involvement complicates everything. It could be political, nothing to do with the illegals.’
‘But Stone’s out of it.’
‘They might think someone else is carrying on his good work. We’re right in the dark. I’ll have to tell Kelly.’
‘No.’
McIver looked at him. ‘It’s not a choice, mate. I have to tell her; she can get things moving. We don’t like people trying to blackmail cops.’
‘Anna might find out.’
He’d told McIver about the warning he’d been given by the man on the phone.
‘That’s a risk you’ll have to take.’
‘She can’t find out. She couldn’t handle it.’
McIver shrugged. ‘Things can be done. We can get to her service provider, put a block on it. Even your mail, get the post office involved. We can put a ring around Anna.’
‘It could be posted on the internet. Her friends would find out. You can’t guarantee it will never get to her.’
He explained about Anna’s state of mind and her medication. He could tell McIver was taking it in; he hadn’t convinced him, but he was thinking again.
When Troy had finished, he said, ‘Even so, maybe she’d react better than you think. These things are complicated.’
‘They’re not complicated for her. Believe me.’
‘She’s led a sheltered life, then.’
‘It’s not a crime. I’m asking you, as a friend, to help me here. Don’t tell Kelly.’
McIver rubbed his jaw and looked away. His face was scowling, as it did when he was entirely serious. He said, ‘I suppose you think I owe you for saving my life.’
‘I don’t—’
‘I do. That’s the way it is.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘So I’ll do this. If you really want it.’
‘Yes.’
‘But there can be no pulling out. I don’t want you thinking you can just jump back inside the system if this doesn’t work out. Once you go out on your own, things are never the same again.’ He looked at Troy almost fondly. ‘Take my word for it.’
Troy nodded. He was already outside this system. And all others. ‘It’s what I want.’
‘Why were you shaving in here on Saturday? Siegert told me.’
‘I forgot to shave at home.’ He’d already told McIver about his visit to the Mornington Apartments.
Now Mac looked at him and shook his head, as though this shaving business had some deep significance. ‘You think you’re in a condition to make this decision?’
‘Yes. There isn’t much time, is there? I’ll stick to it, you know me well enough for that.’
McIver looked away for a moment and cleared his throat. ‘We ought to get Randall in and bounce him around,’ he said, ‘but as you say, that would be dangerous. You’ve been warned off. The other lead we might have is Mr A. They want us to stop looking for him, so he must be important. And he must be findable. If he wasn’t, they wouldn’t have needed to go through all that bullshit with Geoff Rochford.’
‘He might be dead.’
McIver shook his head slowly. ‘In that case I don’t know if they’d go to the trouble, the risk, of blackmailing you. Because it is a risk for them—cops don’t appreciate this sort of thing. They couldn’t be sure how you’d react.’ McIver looked angry for a moment, but then he smiled. ‘You feel better for talking about it, don’t you?’
‘I’m a Catholic. We like to confess things.’
‘Everyone likes to confess things,’ McIver said. ‘It’s what keeps us in business.’ He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the desk for half a minute. Then he did the same with his left hand, more slowly and with effort. The result seemed to please him. ‘It’d be nice to have allies, but Vella’s about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. So we need to handle it ourselves.’ His lips parted in a surprisingly gentle smile. ‘Here’s the dea
l. I’ll do my best to sort this out without Kelly. And when I say sort it out, I mean so’s Anna will never know.’
Troy felt a surge of relief. It was irrational, but overwhelming.
‘But it might not work. You have to be ready for that. Okay?’
‘Sure,’ he lied.
‘I’m going to have to use my own methods, might have to confide in one or two old mates. There’ll be risk involved. Tell me now, are you up for that?’
‘Yes.’
McIver looked at him dubiously, and seemed about to say something but changed his mind. ‘It could go off quickly,’ was what he did say. ‘In the meantime, could you arrange a bust at home? I’m thinking we need to get the computer out of your house, in case they send the video to Anna.’
‘Anna’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She’s always been worried about security, it wouldn’t be good for her. And she’d just use one of her friend’s computers, anyway.’
As he spoke, he realised it made his wife sound like an invalid.
‘Well, it’s your call, but I’d seriously consider it.’ McIver seemed sick of the subject of Anna. He frowned and looked at his watch. ‘Let me ring a few people. You think some more about Mr A, who he might be. And give me the number.’
‘What number?’
‘The one you called for your hour of indiscretion.’
Troy had thrown away the piece of paper Randall had given him, but he could remember the number. He recited it and stood up.
McIver said, ‘Did you check it out?’
‘Bought under a false name.’
McIver nodded. ‘You know, you’re probably right to fear Kelly. I’ve heard she tried to have both of us bounced after that Sunday night. It was Rogers said no, and not because he’s fond of me. It’s you. Any link there?’
‘I’ve never met him,’ said Troy. He was keen to get out of the small room and be alone.
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