The Simple Death

by Michael Duffy

  Really, though, it has all been good, the entire trip. The best thing is that none of the immigration officials at the Mexican border marked her passport. They’d glanced casually at it and nodded her through, that was it. She’d taken a day trip from Los Angeles by bus, easy to arrange. After identifying a company that made pick-ups at a hotel a kilometre from her own, she took a taxi to its downtown office and bought a ticket, paid cash. The bank notes threw the woman at the counter for a moment, but she’d cheerfully opened her own purse to find change, while Leila told a story about having left her cards in the hotel safe. She’d given a false name, and when the bus picked her up the next morning at the other hotel, the driver didn’t ask to see her passport. So there is no record of that part of her journey.

  The queue moves a little and Leila looks at her suitcase, wondering if it has already been opened and searched while she was waiting at the carousel. She’d locked it, and the tiny padlock is still in place, but presumably they could pick a lock. It is possible they are playing with her, and the customs woman has been sent to see how she’d react. Maybe she should have looked her in the eye, maybe that is what an innocent person would do. She is sweating a bit now, can feel it under her arms, but no one would know: on Stuart’s advice, she is wearing a double quantity of scent-free deodorant.

  The woman with the clipboard is coming back now, stopping and directing some people out of the main queue and down towards the green exit, which is for people with nothing to declare, and which isn’t doing much business. The official stops and says something to the couple in front of her, and then Leila realises the woman is actually talking to her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Daydreaming.’

  ‘I said could I see your customs declaration.’

  Leila hands over her card and the woman reads it and looks back at her.

  ‘This is all you’ve got to declare?’

  Points to the yellow plastic bag containing duty-free liquor: one bottle of Baileys and one expensive French red.

  ‘Yes.’

  The woman makes some sort of mark on the card and returns it, tells Leila to leave the queue and give the card to the person at the green exit. She moves on and Leila pushes her trolley out of the queue, aware of the curious stares of those around her, people wondering if she’s been caught doing something wrong or has been given a quick trip out of here. It is the question she is asking herself.

  Marilyn and Jim smile as she reaches them, and she stops to say goodbye.

  ‘They told me I can go straight through,’ she says. Eat my dust.

  ‘You must have an honest face,’ Jim says generously.

  ‘It comes from leading a pure life.’

  They laugh and she walks on, on and out, gives someone the card and he waves her through, and it is done. She goes through the doors and comes out into the noisy arrivals area, wanting suddenly to laugh and cry, but still keeping it under control. These fucking cameras, they are everywhere.

  There is no one waiting for her, of course, not Wendy or Lewis or anyone else. And why should there be? She has no partner, no children. Steve left her soon after she moved in with Elizabeth. She knew it was the messiness of it, although he never admitted that, said he needed to spend more time with his daughter, she was going through a difficult patch. Steve was into refugees, raising money for East Timor. Leila really hadn’t seen it coming.

  Most of her friends are busy women with children and she hasn’t even told them the time of her flight. There is no family of her own, because her father is dead, and her brothers live in different cities. Her mother is too sick to leave the house anymore.

  And then she recognises a face in the crowd, familiar but unexpect- ed. Julie is here, pushing her way between people with a big smile, coming around the trolley and hugging her. A big woman with tears in her eyes, smelling of some teenage perfume, musky and cloying, even though she must be around thirty. Wearing a striped sweatshirt and jeans.

  ‘This is a surprise,’ Leila says. ‘Is Mum all right?’ Julie is the nurse who’s been caring for Elizabeth this past week.

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘You’re crying.’

  Julie wipes her eyes and stares at the moisture on her hands as though surprised. Looks around. ‘Everyone here,’ she says, ‘they’re so happy.’

  Leila nods, and wonders. Stuart didn’t actually say no one from the group would meet her, but she assumed they’d want to keep away from the airport.

  ‘I just couldn’t wait,’ Julie says in her slightly squeaky voice. ‘Have you done it?’

  ‘We can talk outside,’ Leila says, gently pushing Julie’s arms, the smell of her, away and getting the trolley moving again. ‘Does Stuart know you’re here?’

  ‘I just couldn’t wait. You’re not angry?’

  Leila thinks of the cameras. ‘Of course I’m not. It’s wonderful to see you. Let’s keep walking.’

  ‘Elizabeth’s great. She thought it would be nice if someone came and met you.’

  That doesn’t sound like her mother at all. Although this past year she’s seen things in her mother she didn’t know were there. Maybe they weren’t, before.

  ‘Is anyone with her?’

  ‘Of course. Tami came over. It’s such a lovely house, I’ve never lived in a place with two storeys before. Is that painting over the fireplace a Monet?’

  ‘No.’ It’s a minor impressionist work bought by her father on her parents’ honeymoon in London a long time ago. A horrible picture of a farmhouse. Their most valuable painting is actually a small Tom Roberts smear in the hall, but Leila doesn’t want to go into that with Julie.

  ‘When Elizabeth was asleep I used to just wander around, there’s so much room.’

  Leila nods. The place is a mock Tudor monstrosity named Ingleholme. When she grew up there it seemed like a prison, boring and old and with roses outside, a symbol of all she despised about her parents’ world. And remote from everything.

  God, she thinks. I was so young.

  Now it would be lovely to be able to live there, once her mother is gone, redecorate the whole place and acquire an interest in gardening. But of course this is impossible. As soon as Elizabeth is dead, her sons will insist the house be sold. They moved from Sydney to get away from their mother, left it to Leila to care for her when she became ill. But once she goes they will want their share.

  ‘I spent a lot of time bringing my diary up to date,’ Julie says, chatty as they make their way through the crowd.

  Leila remembers a big book Julie was carrying when she’d arrived at the house with her bags, more like a ledger than a diary.

  ‘Is that just one year?’

  ‘It goes right back,’ Julie said. ‘I only put in the really important things. Sometimes you just need to put stuff down. I wanted to be a writer once.’

  ‘Right back to when?’

  ‘To when I met Carl,’ she said, referring to her long-term boyfriend. ‘Sometimes I take it out and we read about things we’ve done together. Holidays and things.’

  Leila smiles. Socially, she can hardly relate to Julie at all. Professionally it’s a different matter: Julie makes sense.

  It is hot outside and Julie directs Leila into the big car park. Once they are away from other people, she says, ‘What’s the news?’

  ‘I got it,’ Leila says, feeling ridiculously proud, ‘Two bottles.’

  Julie gives a little shriek and tries to embrace Leila, who keeps hold of the trolley firmly. ‘Let’s just get out of here, okay?’

  ‘You, girl, are a champion. Stuart will be so pleased with you.’

  Leila doesn’t really care what Stuart thinks of her. And yet, she’s glad she’s been able to get an extra bottle for him. The man has been a great help to her, and to many others.

  ‘I wish I could have
got more. But I had to put them in pockets in my coat to cross the border.’ An awful baggy denim number she’d bought in a mall in LA and left in the hotel room.

  The women go up a level and Julie chats about the past five days and how Elizabeth has been, which is not so good. Carl spent some of the time there with her. It isn’t what Leila wanted, a couple she doesn’t know very well living in the house, but Julie had offered to look after Elizabeth for free, and Elizabeth was adamant Julie was the only carer she would accept. And Carl came with Julie. He is a nurse too, a big, intense man who keeps to himself but reveals a low-level charm when he gets talking. The arrangement worked out. Leila spoke with her mother on the phone every day she was away, and she was happy enough.

  Julie says, ‘I lost some of the money. I’ll pay you back, of course.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘I took some of the thousand dollars when I went to the shops one day, and I was in such a rush to get back to Elizabeth I must have dropped it somewhere. I wanted to get back as soon as I could, you know how impatient she gets.’

  Leila left the money for food and in case of emergencies. She feels a twinge of annoyance, says, ‘That’s fine. There’s no need to pay me back.’

  ‘It’s five hundred dollars.’

  ‘You took that much to the shops?’

  ‘I must have taken more than I thought. Sorry.’

  Jesus Christ, Leila thinks. ‘No, honestly,’ she says. ‘It’s fine.’ And really, it is. Really. Leila still can’t get over Julie’s kindness in helping her like this. She is a slightly odd woman, but good. There is something to be learned here: she accepts it is a kindness she herself must pass on, further down the line. Once all this is over.

  ‘You can rely on us, you know,’ Julie says as they get off the escalator.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘We would never tell anyone, Carl and I. We are totally dedicated.’

  It has never occurred to Leila they might tell anyone. It does not occur to her now.

  ‘I know, Jules,’ she says, touching the nurse’s arm almost fondly. ‘I’m so grateful to you.’

  Julie blushes, nods vigorously.

  Her car is a red Laser, aged and grubby. Leila has never seen it before, and wrinkles her nose when the hatch is opened and a stale smell rolls out of the hot vehicle. She suspects its source is hamburger wrappers, and a moment later sees McDonalds’ paper on the back seat.

  ‘Stuart asked me to get the other bottle—he needs it today,’ Julie says as she lifts Leila’s luggage off the trolley.

  ‘I think I’ll give it to him myself.’

  She wants to see his face. Maybe she does care what he thinks.

  ‘The person it’s for, Alecia Parr, her condition has deteriorated.’

  ‘Okay.’ It is fair enough, Leila supposes. But not here.

  ‘When we get home,’ she says. ‘There are cameras covering the car park.’

  ‘I can’t take you all the way,’ Julie says. ‘But I can drop you at Central.’

  None of this is as Leila expected. After a thirteen-hour flight, she is in no mood for the city’s ancient train system. She could have been in an air-conditioned taxi by now, well on the way to Beecroft.

  ‘I’ve got to work, you know.’ Julie sounds offended. ‘I haven’t been at the hospice for a week.’

  Again it is there, that prickliness that comes and goes in her, and which Leila has never understood. But then, you probably have to be different to be involved in this sort of thing at all, caring for dying people. Grabbing hold of the hatch, Leila pulls it firmly down and goes to the passenger door and waits. After a bit, Julie comes from the back and gets in the other side.

  It was like this back then, Leila recalls, when she was a heroin addict years ago. Adults acting like children. People took stupid risks and dragged you down with them. That is how she’d ended up in court twice, in jail the second time. Other people are always the problem. They are generally less intelligent than you, and you’d think this should give you an edge. But that is naive. Often it simply means you have no idea how they are going to behave, because they are so different from you.

  They drive out of the car park and towards the city. Leila has the window down. You can smell the exhaust fumes, but it is preferable to what is inside the car. She is calmer now.

  ‘I did it,’ she says, and looks at Julie and smiles.

  Julie whoops exuberantly, and Leila wishes she could do that. But still, she can do other things. She’s just smuggled two bottles of Nembutal into Australia, two simple, peaceful deaths. She has done that.

  They drive down O’Riordan Street and turn into Botany, heading through Redfern to Central. Two boys run across the road, and Julie swerves to avoid them.

  ‘Hood rats,’ she says.

  It is a big swerve, Leila feels it in her stomach.

  ‘You okay?’ she says.

  ‘Had a few wines last night to celebrate our last day, some nice cab sav from the cellar. That okay?’

  ‘Just keep your eyes on the road.’

  The physical lurch shifts her mood. The smuggling expedition, her great triumph, is over. There will be no celebration party, this will not be going on her CV.

  And really it is just the beginning. As they drive through the gentrifying inner south, past seconds stores and rows of modern apartment blocks, Leila thinks about what she has to do next. The really difficult bit.

  Seven

  Alan Peters turned up in the middle of the search of the Pearsons’ flat. He was an average-looking man in his mid-fifties, balding and in the habit of carrying a few pens in the pocket of his white shirt. He was the only detective Troy knew who wore one of those silly-looking mini-headsets for a mobile phone, the sort that fitted over the top of the ear.

  Peters was one of the best detectives in New South Wales. According to McIver, he had only taken the promotion to inspector because he’d remarried and needed the money. He said Peters would have preferred to stay a sergeant like himself. Possibly as a result of this, there was a tinge of bitterness in his dealings with his team. And the world.

  Now he stood with McIver in the hall outside the flat, talking quietly. Troy approached, and realised the men were discussing cricket. They stopped when he cleared his throat and explained the search of the flat had turned up nothing of interest. Various documents and the hard drives from the two computers had been taken away. The ampoules and their box had been dusted and there were no prints.

  ‘How unusual’s that?’ said Peters.

  ‘The tech says it happens. Maybe the people who package this stuff use gloves for hygiene. Pearson might have handled the box by the ends. We could get a DNA check.’

  McIver nodded. No prints had been found on the box in Pearson’s bag, either.

  While the search was underway, the Nguyen women sat in the lounge room saying nothing. Emily had stopped crying and seemed to have retreated into herself. Troy had the impression the intellectual puzzle posed by the discovery of the pethidine was at least as important to her as its emotional implications. Maybe that was a way of keeping on top of the emotion.

  When the search was finished, he got a lift back to the station with Peters. The car smelled of an aftershave Troy recognised, more expensive than he would have expected.

  ‘What do you think about the wife?’ said the inspector. Troy told him. You had to be sceptical in the job, but you had to make accurate judgements of people too. He was sure Emily knew nothing.

  ‘Bloody judges,’ was all the inspector said. Then he called Parramatta to see how the search for Austin was going. Almost nothing had been done yet: a fight among a large group of homeless people in a local park had diverted the local resources.

  ‘Not good,’ he murmured when he hung up.

  ‘Austin wasn’t in the fi
ght?’

  ‘No. That’s one thing they do know.’

  A few minutes later Police Media called to say one of the networks had video footage of Austin getting into the speedboat and fleeing Manly Wharf. It had been shot by a tourist who’d just got off the ferry.

  Peters said to Troy, ‘They want a comment.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Apparently it’s a nice clean image of his face. They’re preparing some words.’

  ‘Are there any police visible in the film?’

  ‘You mean like you?’

  ‘For example.’

  Peters kept his eyes on the road. ‘No, there aren’t. How’s Susan Conti settling in?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘She’s a looker.’

  ‘Did you know Bill Conti?’

  Peters glanced at him. ‘Everyone knew Bill. He was a very likeable man, got about. She’s not like him, tries too hard.’ Pause. ‘That bloke Johnson she was with, he’s serious too. They should have tied the knot. Made for each other.’

  ‘Don’t opposites attract?’

  ‘Poison, in my experience.’ He was silent for half a minute. ‘What’s wrong with Mac?’ Troy said he didn’t know. ‘Not firing on all cylinders. Should be happy, got himself a nice young woman.’

  ‘Maybe they’re opposites.’

  Peters looked like he was about to smile, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

  Back at the station the detectives met briefly. Manly uniforms had recanvassed shops on the wharf and learned nothing. Conti and Rostov were back from St Thomas’ Hospital. Pearson’s office had been searched, yielded zilch. Ditto for interviews with his staff. His boss was the acting CEO, David Saunders, who was in Melbourne, due back tomorrow. Rostov gave McIver Saunders’ mobile number.

  ‘We’ll assume for the moment Pearson did come off the Narrabeen,’ McIver said, glancing at Peters, who was checking his phone. ‘So is it accident, suicide or murder? We have no reason to think he topped himself.’