by Peter Corris
He jerked himself out of his reverie and poured the last of the wine into his own glass.
‘I most certainly do. I think the brother killed her and probably raped her as well. Him and his poxy friend.’
4
Hastings enjoyed my startled reaction. But I was thinking that the attitude change Fonteyn had described could be a result of being abused by her brother. If it had happened.
‘He’s a vicious little brute,’ Hastings said. ‘I believe he hated his sister and his father and his stepmother. Hated everybody, I suspect.’
‘Including you?’
‘Especially me. As you may have gathered, I’ve fallen on hard times. That painting you looked at is a McCubbin. It’s worth quite a lot of money but I hang on to it as a last shred of … well, never mind. I’m a failed academic and a failure at quite a few other things. I eke out a living as a tutor and this crummy place is all I can afford. My clothes are shabby despite my best efforts to keep up some front. “Foxy” Fonteyn took me in at a glance and treated me like shit on his shoe from the first.’
‘Foxy?’
‘What I heard one of his pals call him once. It fitted his appearance and his personality and I’ve thought of him as Foxy ever since. I understand Americans have another meaning for the word but, as Evelyn Waugh said, they don’t really have anything very interesting to say, do they? Have you read Waugh?’
‘No. I saw Brideshead on TV.’
‘Brilliant man. Great writer. I was in a couple of plays … never mind. Anyway, you asked and I’ve told you. I’m afraid I’m out of wine.’
I stood. ‘That’s all right. You’ve been very hospitable and helpful.’
He looked at me blankly. ‘Have I?’
‘Just a few more questions. Did you share your suspicions about Foster Fonteyn with the police?’
‘I most certainly did.’
I mulled this over, thinking how it tied in with Cartwright’s assessment of the son’s hostility.
‘You saw a good deal of the boy, then?’
‘God no, as little as possible, but I heard him raging about, using filthy language about everybody in his family and others. A companion whose name I don’t know and don’t want to know was egging him on. Drugs involved, no doubt.’
‘Apart from your dislike of the boy and his mates did you have any other grounds for thinking he was involved?’
‘Juliana complained about him going into her room and messing with her belongings.’
‘Messing how?’
‘Trying on her clothes, for all I know.’
‘D’you think he was that way inclined?’
‘There’s no way to tell, is there? I just mean that as well as being foully abusive he’s also secretive, sly. He found out about some of the wretched films and television disasters I was in and would call me Olivier, O’Toole and the like.’
‘Where did you conduct your lessons?’
‘In a room set aside for the purpose, why?’
I knew he was holding something back and I decided it was time to put a needle in. ‘Not in Juliana’s room?’
‘You’re being offensive.’
‘I have to be. I need to know how close …’
‘I think that’s enough. A lost pupil represents a drop in income for me, nothing more. A significant drop, in this case. Perhaps someone in your line of business can understand that.’ He wasn’t acting now; he was genuinely affronted and worried about his future. He shot the painting a look that could only be described as despairing. I was tempted to apologise but I didn’t. When you start apologising for raw edges in my business it’s time to quit. I thanked him again but he was sunk in depression and anger and ignored me. He’d probably try to relieve it with more wine. Good luck with that, I thought.
The following week I interviewed the Fonteyns’ servants, several schoolteachers, her tennis and swimming coaches and the brother and stepmother. The servants spoke highly of the girl and expressed regret about her disappearance and the effect it had had on their employer. The coaches, who used the facilities at the school by special arrangement, both said that Juliana had a high level of natural ability and a reasonable work ethic but not the sort of motivation that would project her beyond the ranks of the gifted amateur. It sounded just like what Sergeant Casey Prescott, the boxing coach at the Maroubra Police Citizens Boys’ Club had said of my boxing and ‘Salty’ Lewis at the Surf Life Saving Club had said of my surfing.
Juliana had been collected by her father following the after-school sessions, but according to the coaches, he’d displayed none of the sort of passion exhibited by parents trying to live vicariously through their kids’ achievements. He’d paid generously, taken an interest, watched attentively and was encouraging, and that was all.
The stepmother, Sonja Fonteyn, was one of the most peculiar people I’d ever met. A rail-thin, ethereal ash-blonde, she was such a combination of affectations, pretensions and fragilities that I found it hard to put realistic questions to her. When I did, her replies baffled me. She received me in the Vaucluse house’s drawing room, where she floated around, touching objects as if she was afraid they’d disappear, chain-smoking and arranging her elegantly dressed body in seductive postures which lasted for only seconds.
Foster Fonteyn was hard to track down. He was living at home in theory but, having a gap year before deciding which university to attend and what course to take, he was seldom there. I left messages on his mobile that he ignored. Eventually the gardener told me where he often hung out—at a Double Bay wine bar for the well-heeled, where, as I found out after two unsuccessful visits, a glass of wine cost ten bucks. And not a generous glass either. On my third visit he was there, easily recognisable from photographs his father had given me and from Hastings’s description of him. He was short, thin, and without anything of Fonteyn Senior’s presence. His narrow face with close-set eyes, long nose and thin mouth did indeed give him a foxy look.
He bought a glass of white and slid into a booth. I plonked myself down beside him.
‘Hey,’ he said.
I showed him my licence and he groaned. His eyes were red-rimmed and there was a strong smell of marijuana on his breath when he spoke.
‘Not another fucking one.’
‘I’m afraid so, Foxy. Nice to meet you after all this time.’
He shifted as if to push me aside but he didn’t have the heft or the real resolve. He was very pale and dressed too warmly for the day in a leather jacket. His hands shook as he picked up his glass and I wondered if grass was the only drug he was on.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said. ‘I’ve said it a hundred times.’
‘Do you care?’
‘Of course I fucking care. Leave me alone.’
‘I know someone who thinks you killed her.’
There was a pause, almost imperceptible, but a pause. ‘I didn’t.’
I persisted. I didn’t like bullying a half-stoned kid but this was one of my last shots and I had to give it a go. His answers were monosyllabic mumbles. At one point I deliberately jolted his elbow so that he spilled his wine. I wanted to see how he reacted but he seemed not to care. I gave up, bought him another glass of wine, warned him not to drive and left.
Dr Anna Rosen, the psychologist who’d seen Fonteyn as an obsessed fantasist, had taken up an appointment at MIT. I emailed her but got no reply. It wasn’t likely that she’d discuss a case at a distance, if at all.
That decided me. It went against the grain to bail out of something so important and interesting but I had no alternative. I had a living to make and that meant turning my attention to matters much less significant and involving. I rang Fonteyn.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Fonteyn,’ I said. ‘I can’t see a way forward. I’ll send you my account.’
His voice was sad, filled with resignation.
‘Yes. I suppose you talked to that thick policeman who thinks I killed my daughter and to that desiccated tutor who thinks my son killed her.’
‘I did.’
‘And to the teachers and others who all told you what
a good person she was and gave you nothing to work with.’
‘That’s right and so …’
‘And to my wife, who at least believes Juliana is still alive because a clairvoyant she trusts told her so.’
‘Mr Fonteyn, if I persisted, all I’d be doing is wasting my time and your money.’
‘Understood. Thank you for your efforts, Mr Hardy. I’ll await your account and I assure you it will be promptly paid.’ It was. And that was it until nearly eight months later when I got a phone call from him.
‘Hardy,’ he said in a voice totally unlike the one I’d last heard. ‘I want to re-engage you. There’s been a sighting of Juliana.’
5
I almost dropped the phone. ‘When? Where?’
‘The right questions, of course. On Norfolk Island, of all places. I want you to go there and …’
‘Hold on. How did this information come to you?’
‘A letter with a photo, along with a message saying that the person who made the sighting will explain everything for a payment of ten thousand dollars.’
‘Mr Fonteyn, it sounds like …’
‘No. No, I’m sure it’s genuine. You’ll agree when you see the photo. She looks older, just as you’d expect, and …’
‘Photographs can be faked. Touched up, manipulated in all sorts of ways.’
His excitement had almost given way to anger. ‘Don’t you think I know that? I tell you it’s real. She’s on the jetty at Cascade Bay in Norfolk, which is a place I’ve been to. I recognise the backdrop, and the way she’s standing is completely characteristic, but I know there’s never been a photo of her in quite that pose or in those clothes. Never! I’ll scan everything and send it to you.’
He was too emphatic to argue with directly so I asked him why he didn’t go to Norfolk Island himself.
‘I would, like a shot, but I have a medical problem. Incipient blockages in my lower legs. I can’t fly, can’t risk the changes in air pressure. They’re worried about clots generally. A rogue clot could kill me. You can name your price, Mr Hardy. The way you behaved earlier has given me complete trust in you.’
When a multi-millionaire tells you something like that you listen. He told me that the photo and the message, which had been posted from Norfolk Island a few days ago, instructed him to come to a guesthouse in the island’s main town with the money.
‘Did this person have a name?’ I asked.
When I spoke I heard him draw a relieved breath and got an apologetic but still forceful response. ‘I know I shouldn’t assume that you can just drop everything. I …’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I have to say I still don’t think it’s likely, but if you’re determined to pursue it I’m pleased to help on the same terms as before.’
‘Thank you, but not on the same terms. I’ll do you an EFT for twenty thousand dollars to draw on for operational expenses. You’ll make an assessment of the credibility of the person you contact and I’ll trust your judgement.’
‘You’ll go that far?’
Now the commanding Oxbridge voice sounded tired. ‘You know, I sometimes think trust is one of the most important words in the language. Trust in yourself. Mistrust in yourself, trust in others and mistrust in them. We operate according to it.’
‘I’ll think that over,’ I said. ‘You still haven’t told me the name of the contact.’
‘Colin Campbell. It sounds genuine.’
That was a statement made out of hope more than anything else and didn’t require a considered response.
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said. ‘But I’m not clear about what you’ll be paying for. Is it the recovery of your daughter, or just information?’
‘I’ll pay for confirmation that she was alive at some time after she went missing and information that could lead to her present whereabouts.’
‘That’s a lot of money for not very much.’
‘I’ve learned not to pitch my expectations too high, and actually it’s for quite a lot. It would confirm that neither Foster nor I were involved in her disappearance. Unfortunately it would also confirm Sonja in her fantasies, but that can’t be helped.’
This was a man who thought things through. I had other questions but I decided to leave it there.
The photo and the message reached my computer almost immediately. The girl was standing on a jetty that seemed to be more of a breakwater than anything else; very rocky, with the characteristic tall pine trees in the background. She was wearing jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that all looked like Kmart. Facially, she resembled Juliana Fonteyn very closely but she appeared to have put on weight. She also appeared to be unaware of the photo being taken because her gesture—pointing down at something in the water—was completely unstudied. I saw what Fonteyn had meant by her action being characteristic of her. Juliana was left-handed and this person was pointing with her left hand.
Digital photos are easy to fake, as I’d told her father; nothing could be simpler than to instruct someone to look like and act like a leftie. But I had to agree with Fonteyn, there was something convincing about the image. I studied the picture through a magnifying glass; Juliana had an olive tint to her skin and, living where she did and given her activities, she was likely to have been tanned when she went missing. But this girl was a few shades darker than I’d have expected, as if she’d been out in the weather rather than hopping around a tennis court and jumping in and out of swimming pools.
I let my mind run on those lines … an island, a jetty, weather-effects; it all added up to one thing—boats. In all the theories there’d been about her disappearance, had anyone suggested that Juliana could have been picked up by a boat sailing past her little private beach? I didn’t think so. It was thin as a speculation and perhaps I was just trying to convince myself, but I’d gone in to bat on less evidence and less of a gut feeling before.
The brief instruction was word-processed and the signature above the printed name was illegible. It would be, wouldn’t it?
I googled Norfolk Island and mugged up on its turbulent history and present circumstances. The murder of Janelle Patton and, unrelated to that, the prosecution of some residents for sexual offences had had an effect on tourism and the populace, it seemed. It was a place with deep undercurrents and surface tensions.
I called up images of Cascade Bay, confirming that the photograph had been taken there unless some very skilful manipulation had been at play. The Seafarer guesthouse in Kingston appeared to be a three-star establishment at the eastern edge of the town, with basic amenities and boasting informality and good views. Just my sort of place. I sent an email requesting a room and got a confirmation within thirty minutes. Then I booked an early morning flight to Norfolk the next day.
I also googled the name Colin Campbell, as I was sure Fonteyn would have done, and saw why he hadn’t mentioned doing it—there were more than a dozen people of that name following all sorts of occupations. There was no way to single one out.
I spent the evening in Newtown with my daughter Megan, her partner Hank Bachelor, and Ben and Jack, my two grandsons. I read Jack to sleep with Dr Seuss and then prepared myself to face Ben, who was training for a job with the Spanish Inquisition. His first question was a feint.
‘Can you take me to a movie tomorrow, Cliff?’
‘What about school?’
Megan rolled her eyes, knowing what was coming. ‘Holidays,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ I said. ‘I’m catching a flight out first thing tomorrow.’
‘Where’re you going?’
‘To Norfolk Island.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Out in the Pacific Ocean, but not too far.’
‘What’s it like, this island?’
I gave him a rundown on the place with a brief and no doubt inaccurate account of its convict history and its relation to the Bounty
mutiny.
The kid was an information vacuum cleaner. He absorbed this and pondered it. ‘Why are you going there?’
‘A job, mate.’
‘What kind of a job?’
Hank came to my rescue. ‘That’s enough, Ben. Cliff ’s jobs are his business. He might tell you something about it when he comes back. Right, Cliff?’
‘Right. And I’ll bring you back something, you and Jack.’
‘Different things, please. He’s a baby.’
I took out my notebook and a pen and pretended to scribble. ‘Something different. Got it.’
6
Although Norfolk Island’s an Australian territory, all Australians need a valid passport to come and go and a baggage check is made. It’s not as rigorous as actual overseas travel but it’s irritating enough and adds to the annoyance of the stupid instruction not to make jokes about terrorism when you step inside the airport. To my mind, if terrorists rob us of our sense of humour they’re really winning.
I went business class on Fonteyn’s dime and passed the time comfortably with a light meal, a couple of drinks and Robert Macklin’s Dark Paradise, a history of the island, which I’d picked up at the airport. Good read. I had my usual travelling companion, a volume of Somerset Maugham’s short stories, in my bag as backup, but it stayed there.
Feeling more like an interstate trip, the flight was uneventful and it felt much the same on arrival, though with a touch of time travel—stepping back a decade or three to a more basic set of arrangements and more casual attitudes. I had no idea how long I’d be on Norfolk or where I might go, other than to Cascade Bay, but I hired a Mitsubishi 4WD to get me into Kingston and give me freedom of movement. I checked into the Seafarer and was given a room on the second level. It had all I needed—a toilet, a shower, a ceiling fan and a mini-bar.
I knew that the climate was benign, seldom very hot—even more rarely, very cold. I was prepared, with light clothing and casual shoes. Wearing drill trousers, a short-sleeved shirt and canvas loafers without socks, I walked into the town. It was warm in the late morning and the humidity was high but I didn’t need to acclimatise. Early October in Sydney under global warming was much the same.