Blood Sisters

by Caroline de Costa

  ‘Did you actually see her fall down the stairs?’ asked the second constable. ‘And what’s the name of the injured woman?’

  ‘Karen Moster,’ Meredith managed to pull herself together to say. ‘She had just driven home with my daughter.’ At this point Emily came forward and also put an arm around her mother.

  ‘Thanks, Em,’ Meredith whispered.

  ‘And so, you saw her fall? It was an accident?’ asked the second constable.

  ‘I didn’t see her fall. I don’t know what happened,’ Meredith said. ‘We were in my living room. She left. Then I heard a loud bang. I thought she had thrown something onto the veranda.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Well, we had been arguing. She walked out.’

  ‘Was there some physical contact between you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you push her down the steps?’

  ‘Absolutely, not!’ Meredith was emphatic and at this point her legal training seemed to kick in.

  ‘I wasn’t with Karen when whatever happened to her happened, so I can’t really tell you what it was. I rushed out, saw her at the bottom of the steps, and called Laurel. Laurel called triple 0 and we stayed with Karen until the ambulance arrived. Laurel thought her breathing was getting slower, but we didn’t know what we could do about it. By then the ambulance was here, anyway.’

  ‘Meredith,’ Laurel said, ‘I don’t think you should say anything more. I think you need a lawyer with you.’

  Meredith was indignant: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said the first constable, ‘we’re not suggesting you have. But your friend’s right. You’re entitled to a lawyer. We’re going to need you to come down to the station to give us a statement about what happened. Can your daughter drive you there, do you think? Obviously, this has been a shock; it might be better not to drive.’ Meredith nodded.

  There was a squeal of tyres as a car came rapidly into the street. Emily recognised her father’s BMW.

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Meredith under her breath. ‘That’s all I need!’

  Emily ran towards Blake as he jumped out. ‘Stay calm!’ she said. ‘There’s been an accident. Karen was here, she dropped me home. It seems she fell down the front steps. Nobody saw it happen, though. She’s unconscious, I think, and the ambulance has just taken her to the hospital. Meredith has to go to the police station.

  ‘And,’ she added, ‘Mum knows all about you and Karen. So, I’d stay away if I were you!’

  Blake’s jaw dropped. He stood a little uncertainly, looking at his wife, then walked towards her.

  ‘Jim Richardson called me. Laurel told him to. I think I should call Tony for you, get him to come with you to make a statement,’ he said, conscious of the listening officers. Meredith nodded. She was not planning to make a scene with Blake, here in the street.

  ‘Emily can drive me in my car,’ she said. ‘See if Tony can meet me there. I have to just take things one step at a time here.’

  ‘We need to talk...’ Blake began.

  ‘We certainly do,’ Meredith replied. ‘Later.’

  ***

  Meredith sat on one side of the desk in Cass’s office with her lawyer, Tony Brunetto. On the other side were Cass and Drew.

  ‘I must tell you that the woman taken to hospital by ambulance from your house is having tests done as we speak, and will probably need surgery,’ Cass said to Meredith. ‘She has been identified by her husband as Karen Moster.’

  Meredith put her head in her hands.

  ‘My god,’ she said. ‘Until this morning, I thought she was my friend...’

  ‘We’d like to take a statement from you,’ Cass said gently. ‘You’ll understand that we’re looking after the case now.’

  ‘Are you able to do that, Meredith?’ asked Tony. ‘Or would you prefer to wait?’

  Meredith sat up. ‘No, I can do it now. It’s better to do it as soon as possible, so I don’t forget anything.’

  ‘Firstly, can you tell me again who you are? Name, age and occupation?’

  ‘I am Meredith Harrison. I’m 42. I’m a solicitor practising in Cairns.’

  ‘And, when you’re ready, can you tell us what happened this afternoon?’

  Meredith stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts, then said:

  ‘So... this morning, Monday 27 August 2013, my daughter, Emily, spoke to me. Emily knew that I have suspected for some time that my husband, Blake, has been having an affair, although I did not know with whom. He denied this, however, when I asked him. I had also spoken of my suspicions to Karen Moster. This is... oh, dear... a woman who, until today, I had thought, was a friend. Karen worked for some time as a secretary with my husband’s law firm, where I also worked, until last year. Two years ago, Karen married Gerhard, from the same practice, and then stopped working for the law firm.

  ‘Recently, she offered to collect Emily from school most afternoons so Emily could practise her driving and get her hours up. All of my family thought this was a very generous offer on Karen’s part.

  ‘As I usually get home from work about forty minutes or an hour after Emily, Karen often stays—stayed—in our house until I got home so we could have a bit of a wind-down together with coffee or a drink. Over the time, I revealed my suspicions about Blake to Karen. She was very sympathetic and concerned. At least, she appeared to be.

  ‘This morning, Emily told me that last week, when Karen thought Emily had left the house, she observed her going through my bedroom drawers—apparently, looking at my underwear. Emily thought this was odd but didn’t tell me about it immediately. A few days later, she observed Karen opening the drawer of my husband’s desk. When Emily looked in the drawer herself, later, she found a note from Karen to Blake.

  ‘Emily told me all this before school this morning. As you can imagine, I was... very upset. Upset that I was right about the affair, and that my husband had lied to me. Upset that it involved someone I thought was a friend, who also lied and deceived me over a period of time. But the thing that made me most angry was that Karen had involved my daughter in her schemes. By letting Emily drive her car, she was clearly trying to get Em onside, and use her to get information about me and about the private lives of our family. I felt this was detestable.

  ‘So, I decided to confront Karen, and I asked Emily to arrange to drive home with her this afternoon, as usual, then to stay out of the way while I spoke to Karen. So, I left the office early and when I arrived home, I looked in my husband’s desk. Although you might find this surprising, I had never done such a thing before—spying on Blake. But... sure enough, there was a note in the drawer that was obviously intended for Karen.’

  Meredith stopped again, then asked: ‘Could I have a glass of water, please?’ Cass got a jug and glass. Meredith continued:

  ‘I went into my bedroom and waited for Karen, who came into the house not knowing I was there. I heard her go into my husband’s study. When I came out, she was looking in the desk drawer.

  ‘She ran out and into the living room, but she stopped when I followed her. I told her that I knew she was involved with Blake, and that I felt absolutely betrayed by her—someone whom I thought was a friend. And appalled by the fact they’d both lied to me. I told her that I would be seeking a divorce, immediately.

  ‘She became confrontational and made some quite unpleasant remarks about my relationship with my husband. At that point I shouted at her, telling her to get out of my house and never come back. She responded with another insulting remark. I moved towards her and slapped her face. I did not intend to cause any injury, and it was not a hard slap. I was furious with Karen, but, of course, I had no intention of doing her any physical harm.

  ‘She was a bit taken aback and for a moment she sort of hovered there looking uncertain. I didn’t know if she was going to try to slap me back or apologise. But then, she just turned around and walked rapidly out the front door while I just stayed put in the living room. I was s
haking so much I couldn’t move, not even to sit down. I was about to go and get a drink of water when I heard a bang out the front. My initial thought was that Karen was throwing something onto the veranda. I looked out the window and, initially, couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Then... my god,’ Meredith buried her face in her hands. ‘I... I realised that Karen was lying on the ground at the bottom of the steps. When I ran outside, she was lying on the path at the foot of the steps, with her head twisted awkwardly. I tried calling her name, but she was unconscious and was very pale, but breathing, and I could feel a pulse in her wrist.

  ‘At that moment, my neighbour from next door pulled up in her car outside her house. Which is when I called to her and asked her to ring 000 urgently. I could only think that Karen must have fallen the full length of the stairs and hit her head. But it’s only six steps and she always seemed to be very fit and healthy.’

  Meredith gave a sob and said with anguish: ‘I can’t understand how she could have sustained such a serious injury from falling down the steps’. She took a gulp of water and was silent for a few moments. Then she went on:

  ‘I was extremely upset by all these events. Laurel’s husband was at home, luckily. When he came out, I asked him to call Gerhard, Karen’s husband. The ambulance arrived quite quickly but by the time the paramedics were lifting Karen into it, her breathing seemed to be slowing and irregular. At this point, my daughter, Emily, arrived back home along with the police and I explained to them what had happened: that I had slapped Karen’s face in the living room, that I did not go with her to the front steps or see her fall, and that I certainly did not push her down the steps or have any physical contact with her after she walked out the front door of my house.’

  ‘So, can I just ask you,’ Cass said to Meredith, ‘if there was any other physical contact between you and Karen Moster apart from the slap? At any time while she was in your house or on your veranda?’

  ‘None at all,’ answered Meredith.

  ‘And how would you describe the slap?’ asked Cass. ‘Light? Moderate? Hard?’

  ‘Light,’ replied Meredith. ‘I would call it... symbolic, more than anything. I was angry, yes, but I was still wanting... to preserve my dignity, I guess you could say.’

  Cass nodded. ‘We’ve sealed off the scene of the events at your home,’ she said. ‘We have to do this, as you would know. Do you have someone you can stay with tonight?’

  ‘Ah... yes. Faith, a friend from work. I can probably stay with her. Emily can probably stay with her friend, Scarlett. My husband can make his own arrangements.’

  ‘Scarlett?’ asked Cass. ‘Is that Scarlett Smith? Is she at school with your daughter?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Meredith in surprise. ‘Oh, you met her I suppose because she was in the motel where that poor young woman was found.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Cass said. She sat forward and looked directly at Meredith. ‘We’ll need to wait and see what happens to Karen Moster,’ she said. ‘Even if she does well with the surgery it may be some time before she’s able to talk to us. And she may not remember what happened to her. We can’t tell at the moment whether we will have to consider charges in regard to this... incident.’

  Meredith nodded.

  ‘We need you to provide us with your address while you’re not at home. And please don’t leave Cairns until we have some more facts in this case.’

  Meredith looked at Tony and nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tony, ‘my client agrees to these conditions.’

  ‘And we’ll need your mobile phone, Mrs Harrison, so we can check the texts you exchanged with your daughter,’ Cass said.

  Meredith picked up her bag from the floor and reached for the phone. After rummaging in it briefly, she turned it upside down on her lap. But the phone was not among the many objects that appeared.

  Cass suppressed a smile. Her own bag upended would produce a similar collection of vital items.

  Meredith thought for a moment. ‘It must be in the house,’ she said. ‘I definitely had it when I got home because I remember taking a call from my office just before Karen arrived. I must have left it somewhere. Probably in the living room. Yes... I remember now that I was still holding it when I was talking to Karen.’

  ‘Forensics will find it,’ said Cass. ‘They’ll be looking through the house this evening. We’ll ask them to pass it on to us. We’ll return it to you as soon as we can. Before you go, just give me your friend’s number so we can contact you meanwhile.’

  ***

  Emily stood outside her house waiting for her father to collect her. Blake had received a call from Meredith’s lawyer, explaining that Karen was having surgery and Meredith was going to stay with Faith. The police were not pressing any charges at the moment but were waiting for further information on Karen’s condition.

  ‘It’ll be better if Meredith goes straight to Faith’s place,’ Tony had said to Blake. ‘She needs to settle down a bit, mate. Emily seems fine. I’ll drop her over at your place and she can pick up what she and Meredith need tonight.’ Meredith had given Emily a list of things to pack into an overnight bag that Blake was to leave at Faith’s place. This included Meredith’s passport which she would have to leave with the police. Blake was also to take Emily to Scarlett’s where Sally had agreed she could stay for as long as needed.

  Emily had been allowed into the house in the company of a young woman PC. It felt weird, though, because apart from the police crime-scene tape stretched across the drive and nature strip, the house looked exactly the same as it had in the morning. When Emily had been skimming the pool, Karen had been perfectly healthy, and Meredith had not known what Emily would reveal. There was no sign of a woman having been seriously injured and lying on the paving at the bottom of the front steps, either; and dusk was coming on exactly as it did every night.

  Emily took Meredith’s list and walked to the back of the house accompanied by the young policewoman who’d introduced herself as Tasha, and whose role was to make sure Emily did not disturb anything that might be evidence. The passport was in a folder on top of the wardrobe—that was easy. She pulled out bits of underwear from the drawer that she’d seen Karen looking through. Would this be evidence, she wondered? Makeup, a nightdress, washbag, shampoo. Emily worked through the list. A second skirt for the office—but would her mother be able to go to work tomorrow, with all this happening?

  She found an overnight bag and packed everything in.

  ‘I’m just going to get my things too,’ she told Tasha. ‘My room’s at the front.’

  They walked down the hall and into Emily’s bedroom. Emily began to gather what she’d need at Scarlett’s and push it into a plastic holdall. Just then Tasha’s mobile rang.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘excuse me. Um... do you mind if I just take this call outside? You’re nearly ready, aren’t you? I’ll meet you out on the veranda.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll turn out the lights and come out through the front.’

  Emily shoved her Japanese language folder into the top of the holdall together with her hairbrush. She could hear Tasha laughing as she crossed the living room and went out the front door. It didn’t sound like it was a work-related call. Emily turned off the light in her room and walked into the living room. This was presumably the room that would be of most interest to the forensic experts who were apparently going to turn up here very soon. On the couch was her mother’s copy of The Monthly. She knew Meredith would like to have that—but it seemed it would have to stay where it was.

  Then at the back of the couch, resting against a cushion, Emily saw her mother’s mobile.

  Should she pick it up and take it with her? Disturbing a crime scene—was that a terrible offence? Would she go to prison? But no one knew where the phone was right now except Emily. Meredith could just as easily have left it in the car when Emily was driving her to Sheridan Street.

  She picked it up, and after turning it off, tucked it into the pocket of her school ski
rt, and went outside to join Tasha.

  Right now, standing outside this house where suddenly everything had changed, she was just holding herself together until she could see Scarlett. What had she done? What was going to happen to her mother? She could not stop herself shaking.

  Em whatever happened ITS NOT YOUR FAULT Scarlett had texted, after Emily had called her with a garbled account of the events of the afternoon.

  But surely some of it was her fault? If she’d done things differently, told her father first... perhaps he and Meredith might have had a conversation and her mum would have resisted the impulse to confront Karen. And then Karen would still be okay, and she and her parents would be sitting down to dinner soon in their house, which was now in the charge of the police.

  Her father’s BMW drew up at the kerb and Blake got out. He hugged her, and for a moment she held on tight, feeling like a child again. How long since he’d hugged her like this: seven, eight years? Then she pulled herself away, thinking, it’s his fault too. If he hadn’t got involved with Karen, she wouldn’t have fallen down the steps.

  ‘Chicken,’ he said, ‘none of this is your fault’.

  Feeling absolutely wretched and confused, she concentrated on opening the rear door and slinging in her bags before climbing into the front: ‘Dad, I just don’t want to talk about it now,’ she said.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he persisted. ‘There was nothing between Karen and me. Just a little thing that stupid grownups sometimes do. I never wanted to stop being a family or anything like that.’

  Emily felt sick hearing this. She thought she might throw up in the car. Finding her water bottle, she took a long swig from it. He was such a disappointment to her, lying like that. She swallowed some more water.

  ‘Where are you going to stay?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll have to find a hotel room. Tony and Faith will look after your mum. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt Karen. The police will work that out and she’ll be fine. Tony’s the best criminal lawyer in town.’