The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

by Kimberley Starr

  I considered the prim way she sat, knees pulled underneath the ironed pleats of her school uniform skirt. “Were you and Rebecca invited in for tea?”

  Brigid looked serious. “No one’s been invited there for years. That’s why they say it’s haunted. There’s just this old guy lives there on his own. He hardly ever goes out. They say it’s because he killed his mother and her ghost keeps him locked up.”

  “They say? Who says?” I demanded.

  “Well, some of the kids from school. And Mum says his mother did die really suddenly.”

  “Lots of people die really suddenly. Especially when they’re old.”

  “You don’t think it’s brave to go up there?”

  “We weren’t talking about brave,” I said. “Who cares about brave? We’re talking about breaking the rules. About not being a goody-two-shoes. Anyway, what did you do there?”’

  “We went into his yard. I almost walked up his front steps.”

  “We?” I asked, wondering if I was about to learn something more interesting about her elusive brother. “Who went with you?”

  “Some cousins of mine from Adelaide.” Brigid shrugged.

  I closed my eyes, watching squirly figures dance like smoke on the back of my eyelids. “It doesn’t mean anything if you only went into his yard,” I said. “The old guy probably didn’t notice you were there. Anyway, no one gets haunted by their parents. That’s just silly. I still think you should run away from home.”

  Brigid laughed. “I like my home. We all get on,” she said. “Your grandma isn’t very nice to you, is she? Mum says it’s because she wishes you were Joanne. Who’s Joanne?”

  Anger rushed through me like a wave. They’d been talking about me. I wished we were closer to the water, so I could push Brigid in.

  “Joanne was my mother!” I yelled suddenly. “I hate my grandma.”

  It should be me who was missing. No one would be upset about that.

  “I bet a pedophile has Cameron Seymour!” I said. “I bet he’s a white slave. I bet he’s dead”

  Brigid shook her head, as though she wanted to be reasonable. “Cameron can’t be dead. He was at my primary school. We used to catch the same bus. I taught him how to play soccer.”

  To her, that seemed to be proof enough. Kids in Brisbane are so naive, I thought. I stood up and left her on her own.

  But I couldn’t leave the Cameron Seymour story behind, not anywhere. The next day, even in maths, we were invited to talk about our feelings. Most of us obliged. It was more interesting than trigonometry.

  In art class afterwards, Mrs White moved around the room, looking more like a hospital matron than Frida Kahlo or the other artists we were meant to be inspired by. She handed out pots of paint and instructed us to paint how we felt. “Do any of you know the concept of catharsis?”

  She returned to the front of the room and reached for a paintbrush of her own. No one put up their hand, but this time she didn’t seem to mind. “It’s the idea that art is a sort of therapy. Let’s have some quiet music, students, and paint.”

  As if to guide what our feelings should be, she put out twice as much black paint as white, three times as much red as blue. I thought of Mrs Seymour, Cameron’s mother, who must be grieving as intensely as my grandma. They’d both lost a child. Maybe it was worse for Mrs Cameron, because she didn’t know what had happened, and had no grave to visit or sympathy cards to keep.

  But I couldn’t keep her or her son in my mind for long. I hadn’t known him. I was young. I was alive, here, in this room of pencils and pastels and acrylics and oils. I loved them. I loved the viscous texture of the cheap school paint, its colourful smell. Nothing smelled so much of a kaleidoscope except a garden. My mother’s artistic nature eventually found its expression in flowers; she’d been a florist. But I wanted to be more. As she had tried in the painting that remained her passionate hobby, I wanted to create the very essence of the blooms. I stood at the easel and let the paint direct me.

  From memory, I painted my mother’s favourite vase, thick and white with a faint blue pattern traced into the ceramic. I had to go back to the locker for more white; I painted thickly, as if I didn’t want the image to dry and lose the mutability of fluid. I used the end of my paintbrush to scratch the long, thin crack, and filled the vase with baby roses: pale pink petals, pale green leaves. I painted my own variety of rose, genus Madeleine, delicate, thornless.

  Mrs White stood at my shoulder. “If this is how you feel, how peaceful life must seem.”

  I looked at the painting then, comparing it to the others around the class, and was ashamed. We’d been invited to paint our feelings with the expectation of revealing fear and anxiety. My painting looked frivolous. Worse, even in my old life, when I was happy, I’d never felt as peaceful as this vase.

  Anger seized me. Mrs White smiled and I wanted to provoke her. I craved harsh words, for her to demand to see me after class. Yet, a moment later, I wanted her to admit I painted the best vase she’d ever seen.

  I didn’t know what I wanted. “My mother loved flowers,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  There were a few snickers, but Mrs White continued smiling. “There’s no reason to apologise. This is good work. We each have our own way of dealing with pain.”

  When she moved on to the next student, I reached for the red and the black after all, determined to wound her complacency with blood and shadows.

  Two

  Tomorrow the defendant will make the first of perhaps many appearances in the courthouse across the river from my hotel. Tonight I am free. I shower in my room and take the elevator downstairs. This city was once my home. Has it changed, or have I? I suspect that the answer, as usual, is both.

  Twenty years ago, violent crime was not an impossible nor even perhaps an uncommon event in these parts, but people didn’t expect it the way they seem to nowadays. Years after I left my grandma’s River Pocket home, my university psychology class read an FBI report claiming that every year 5000 Americans fall victim to serial killers. Like the other students, I was horrified. Only in America, we said. But that sort of statistic changes the way you look at the world. It inspired films and informed current affairs programs. And even though no one believes the figure any more, people still behave as though they do.

  It’s become a suspicious world. Women consider walking down the street alone at night to be an act of bravery and all men alone near children are considered potential pedophiles. I’ve worked with some of these criminals; better than most, I should know the danger they pose. Although I can’t help suspecting we’re all somehow reduced by our fears, maybe now these statistics are quoted, fewer people are victims. Who can tell? One thing I do know is that the particular man who killed five Brisbane children this year is behind bars.

  I walk beside the river, along a path that divides the waterway from an artificial beach constructed alongside a huge pool. Across the river, where timber buildings once stood, dilapidated and rich with unsubtle history, mirrored office blocks now reflect the city back to itself. The humid air smells potently of chlorine and barbecues and thick white frangipani flowers crushed underfoot. Warehouses and factories that I remember are long gone. Mature trees grow where crates were once stacked. In place of the industrial wasteland, city planners have constructed an urban playground.

  I wish the river was as innocent to me as it is to the people I see playing near it now: the parents of young children who squeal as they queue for the Ferris wheel; the extended families who sit poised between esky and barbecue, cold beer in one hand, hot sausage in the other, sunburned and laughing; the teenagers who spread their towels beside each other on the sand and dive off wooden platforms, splashing and squealing. A couple of weeks ago a child’s body was pulled up from the mangroves just a couple of kilometres upriver from here. He had been missing for three months, dead for almost as long. I close my eyes against the image that knowledge brings to my mind — but the reaction is foolish. Whether I like it or n
ot, I am fully aware of what several weeks of immersion will do to a person.

  Resolutely, I turn my mind to the sunset. I don’t need to think about my work right now. Instead, I continue to walk towards the bridge that leads into town. One building I pass has been painted the same insolent blue as Lachlan’s runners. From its wide open doors, beer- and wine-drinking patrons spill onto a raised section of the footpath. I’m tempted to join them. I’ve never had a drink in Brisbane before; alcohol wasn’t my drug of choice as a teenager. Succumbing, I carry a glass of Chardonnay to one of the outside tables and from there gaze at the view across the river. Silvered skyscrapers continue to capture my attention. Brisbane really is a city now, despite all the jokes about an oversized country town. Brisbane has changed as I have changed; we have grown separately. Now I have returned.

  As I gaze out at the water an unbidden image of my mother comes to mind. At the age I am now, she was already severely ill. I have asked doctors if the progress, like the disease itself, might be inherited, and been met with shrugs. Nothing is inevitable or even predictable. Even the river that looks so orderly periodically breaks its banks and inundates the city with waves of destruction. Cancer follows many possible courses, they tell me.

  I think about the man I have come here to discuss. Another psychologist is responsible for most of the work in evaluating him. I have a brief set of case notes in the folder beside me, but I don’t look at them right away. I’m meant to be unwinding, energising myself for the difficult task ahead. Anyway, those notes are too brief. They don’t even mention the offender’s name.

  “Can I get you another drink?”

  I look up at the waitress, and notice that my glass is already empty. The alcohol has eased through me, the first flush of relaxation I’ve felt since I arrived. At the next table a group of businessmen in open-necked shirts surround a collection of beer glasses. Apparently they’ve been here for some time.

  “Maybe I will, thanks,” I say.

  One of the businessmen laughs too loudly and takes a sly glance at my legs. I shift in my seat, crossing my ankles in the opposite direction. Should I leave? It wouldn’t do to turn up at the police station inebriated. I wait for the second Chardonnay anyway.

  I flip through my notes again. There are some newspaper articles here as well as brief police reports. Psychopath is the newspapers’ word, the police officers’ word, not mine. Perhaps I know more about the definition than they do, but in this case such knowledge makes me more unsure, not less. I know it’s possible for a man to kidnap and kill children and not be psychopathic. Apparently I’m to learn more details of the case tonight, then meet the man after his court appearance tomorrow. That will be the time to make up my mind about whether I know anything that can help.

  I brush my teeth twice and chew through a packet of mints from the minibar before Detective Richardson arrives. He calls from reception downstairs, and I invite him up to my room. Maybe I can induce him to have a drink, too. With a beer in hand, surely he won’t smell alcohol on my own breath? I can’t afford to have him think I’m at any less than top of my form.

  He knocks on my door a couple of minutes later, a man about my age, already beginning to bald.

  “You’re right on time,” I say, welcoming him in. “Sorry, I’m still getting ready.”

  “No problem. I can wait outside if you like.”

  “Of course not. I just have to find a recalcitrant shoe. Ah, here it is.” I stand up, wondering how red my face is, and reach into my pocket for another mint. “You want a drink?”

  His hands remain firmly in his pockets. “Not at minibar prices.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I say. “I’m on consultant’s rates, remember?”

  He looks around more closely. “We’re paying for you to stay here?”

  “I’m a taxpayer too, you know. Come on, have a beer.”

  I wonder if he’s about to say not while I’m on duty, or, indeed, if he is on duty. I’ve worked with the police before, back in Rockhampton.

  “How has the case been going so far?” I ask.

  “Not too bad. There’s no chance Ferris will be let out. Not with the evidence we have.”

  “Ferris?” I repeat.

  “Bradley Ferris. That’s what he’s been calling himself. We won’t release it to the press until we’re sure about other aliases.”

  “Ah.” I slide the shoe on. “You won’t have just one drink?”

  He watches my movement, and swallows reflexively. I begin to feel more in control of the situation.

  “Well, all right.” He laughs. “You’ve twisted my arm.”

  “We can go out to the balcony if you like,” I say. “There’s a nice view from here.”

  I pull a heavy glass door open, and he follows me into the fresh air. “Have you stayed here before?” he asks.

  “This hotel is pretty new. I haven’t been here at all recently. Brisbane’s changed a lot. We never used to be so worried about pedophiles, for one thing.”

  He looks as if he wants to disagree with me, but instead he changes the subject. “Say, what do you remember of the Cameron Seymour case?”

  I stare at him.

  “You remember Cameron Seymour, don’t you?” he prompts.

  I nod. “That was twenty years ago, Detective. I was just a teenager.”

  He takes a swig from his beer and somehow manages to make the gesture look thoughtful.

  “Cameron Seymour has something to do with this case?” I venture at last.

  Detective Richardson looks as if he doesn’t want to reply, then nods. “We’re not announcing that yet either. You can keep this confidential, can’t you?”

  “If I’m to help, Detective, I’ll have to know everything that you know.”

  “It’s all in the folder I’ll give you tomorrow.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it now?”

  “I’d like you to —” He’s cut off by the sound of my mobile phone ringing. I pull it out of my pocket and check the caller ID.

  “My son,” I mouth, as I press the yes button. “Lachie! How are you?”

  Half the state away, my son is tired. “I’m all right.” There is a note of resignation in his voice which I don’t like. Being a Man for so many hours must be exhausting.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him, walking back into the hotel room and perching on a wicker chair.

  “Watching TV. In bed. That’s pretty cool.”

  “There’s a TV set in the study?” I ask.

  “Yeah. It doesn’t have cable, but.”

  “Where are Daddy and Nicole?”

  “Having dinner. I ate already. Nikki’s pretty cool. She bought me KFC.”

  He ate alone. I cannot fight these emotions. But I can turn away so that Detective Richardson won’t see my mascara running. In the mirror I see a messy-haired, fatigued wreck. “Well, you be good for them, OK?”

  “OK, Mum.”

  Long pause. There’s very little left I feel I can say.

  “I love you, Lachie.”

  “Mum, I love you too.”

  Detective Richardson raises his glass in my direction as I return to the balcony. He has been leaning over the railing, watching holiday-makers in the swimming pool beneath. I smile at him. It’s nice that he wants to keep me at my ease, especially considering what we’re here to do.

  “I like to see people outdoors having fun again,” he says. “Now we’ve got Ferris, I mean. People were too scared for a while.”

  I shake my head, wordlessly. Ken Richardson has plenty to say for both of us.

  “You can say what you like,” he says, although I haven’t really said anything, “I’ll never believe bad childhoods create perps like ours. These men are just evil. Not men. Monsters, more like.”

  I nod, even though, professionally, I don’t really understand. Just evil. Something tells me social-process theory won’t mean much to Detective Richardson. I’ll have to keep the terms of my analysis as simple as possible
.

  “Let’s talk about it over dinner?” he asks, hopefully.

  He drives to a roadside restaurant on the other side of town. Over dinner, we get on as well as I get on with anyone. A miniature Eiffel Tower illuminates the table but does little more than remind me how different this place is from Paris. We order fish and argue about drug addiction and serious crime; about whether the rehabilitation of violent offenders is possible (me: often, he: never). Detective Richardson tries to insist that I call him Ken. I don’t want to call anyone Ken, but it becomes increasingly difficult to refuse.

  “You lived in the same street as Cameron Seymour, didn’t you?” he asks, over dessert.

  I nod and take another spoonful of gelato. How can that long-ago case be related to this one?

  “You still own a property there?” he presses.

  I look at him. “You’ve been investigating me?”

  He shrugs. “Investigating the neighbourhood. I’ve read some of your articles before and recognised your name when it came up.”

  “I inherited the house from my grandmother,” I say. “It’s been rented out ever since. I haven’t been there in years.”

  “Not even to look after the property?”

  “I live in Rockhampton. I used a builder to look after that side of things.”

  “You haven’t wanted to sell it?”

  This can’t possibly have anything to do with either of the cases, decades old or modern. “Eventually,” I tell him.

  “I can understand an attachment to a place where you grew up,” Ken says thoughtfully. “My parents still live in a little fibro cottage out Redcliffe way.”

  “I didn’t grow up in River Pocket,” I tell him. “My mother did.”

  “But you were there in Cameron Seymour’s time? I suppose you’ve thought about that a lot over the years.”

  “It would be impossible not to think about,” I agree. “Things seem so vivid when you’re a teenager. I see this in my patients. They spend most of their lives recovering from high school.”