by Joy Dettman
The smaller man smiled, pleased with himself. She attempted to walk around him but he reached for the case, and for an instant she felt the urge to give it to him, right in his sneering ratty little mouth, to send him tumbling out the door. Unleash old anger. Feel the satisfying smash of leather against that sneer.
The footballer within saved the moment. It kicked, did a cartwheel. Anger was no good for him.
Control. Think boys. Think David. Take a deep breath. Humility is required here. When a cop pulls you up for speeding, what do you do? As Bron had discovered, you don’t tell him where he can put his ticket! Play the game, Annie. Play the pregnant mother. Breathe beneath anger and gain control. And when in doubt, smile.
She flashed her teeth, good teeth, white and strong like her father’s, but her eyes were not smiling as she led the way back to the family room.
‘Do you have the key, Mrs Taylor?’
‘What use a lock without a key?’ Her teeth flashing, she handed him her car keys.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ he said, and the second man stepped forward to view the contents as she inserted the smallest key into the lock.
Only a bundle of letters addressed to Malcolm Fletcher, his publisher’s return address on the envelopes. Only a newsletter from the Authors’ Association.
They sifted through the mail, then glanced at her.
‘I pick up Mr Fletcher’s private mail from his postbox. I have his key.’ She offered her key ring, offered the key. ‘If he can’t get up here to collect his mail, I deliver it when I go to see my mother. I’ve been doing it for years, since the eighties.’
They were studying the key, studying her as she gestured to the case.
‘As the name suggests, it is my own. I’ve owned it since I was sixteen. I wrote my name on it the day I bought it at a Brunswick opportunity shop.’ She pointed to a label on the inside of the lid. Her name was there. Ann E Burton. ‘Forensic could probably carbon date that biro with as much accuracy as . . .’ Her mouth closed then, she waited, watching them pry.
The taller man picked up an envelope, glanced at it, then at her. ‘You are speaking about the elderly fellow, the big – ’
‘There is only one Malcolm Fletcher in Mallawindy.’ She took the envelope, placing it face down.
‘You did not see your father’s briefcase that night?’ The detective’s voice no longer sounded so certain.
‘My memory of that night is not clear. We had just learned that Liza had been found dead. My mother was upset and confused. Take the case with you. If she saw me put a briefcase into the boot of my car then it must have been this one. You might like to deliver Mr Fletcher’s mail while you’re about it. It would save the boys and me a trip.’
‘You’ve been very helpful, but perhaps . . .’
She emptied the letters onto the table, offered the case. The smaller man took it. ‘If there is nothing else, then I have my son to collect next door.’
‘We’ll leave you to get on with it, Mrs Taylor,’ the larger man said. ‘We may need to speak again when we have a positive identification.’
They were out the front door, her hand reaching to close it, when the smaller of the two men turned. ‘Your brother, Benjamin Burton, mentioned that your father was one of twins.’
‘He was.’
‘Identical?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is the twin brother still living, Mrs Taylor?’
She shrugged. ‘Since my father’s disappearance we haven’t kept in touch.’ Again her heart began its hard thump, thump, thump as she waited, her hand on the doorknob.
‘The deceased’s skull was found intact. An identical twin would have identical bone structure.’
‘Of course.’
‘Your brother has attempted to phone your uncle at the Narrawee property and at his city residence. He said that you may have their city address.’
‘They had a flat in Toorak many years ago. I don’t know if they still own it.’ She gave them the street name, and the number, and the phone number she’d given to Ben.
‘Samuel and May Burton?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘When were you last in contact with them, Mrs Taylor?’
‘Four, five years ago.’
They left, and as Ann returned to the family room, her hands were trembling. The police may not be able to trace Sam Burton, but it would surely be simple enough to trace his dental records. And find identical fillings, root canal work on the left eyetooth.
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘It’s not over, Aunty May. You’re going to be drawn into it too. You’ve got to be told what is going on up here.’
the lion king
Ann bathed the three boys at five, readying them for bed. She fed them baked beans and stewed apples at six then rewound The Lion King and set it to play again, because Benjamin wanted to see it right through. There was no argument. They never tired of it, and tonight she allowed it to buy peace. Too weary to sew, her hands were not her own tonight. Small pearls jumped from her needle, trembled to the floor to become lost on the tiles. Her back didn’t feel up to searching for them.
After Ben’s phone call yesterday, and his mention of her father’s briefcase, she had emptied her own, removing her childhood treasures, her scribbled poems, packing them into a carton. Then last night, unable to sleep, she’d crawled from Mandy’s bed and taken the carton down to the incinerator, setting a match to one aging page, watching it burn while slowly feeding the fire with the other pages.
She saved the gumnut bubble pipe Johnny had made for her seventh birthday. It had amused Matthew and Tristan for an hour this afternoon and the wind-up mouse that had long ago forgotten how to dance had been placed in their toy-box. An old handkerchief from Narrawee, her initials embroidered on its corner in blue, she had tossed into the washing machine. Mickey’s bloodstained dog collar had been hung on a hook in the garden shed.
Perhaps one day she’d regret her dawn burning, but her childhood poems were gone now, their ashes blown away. Just yesterday’s dust blowing on the wind.
Only this morning she had placed Malcolm’s mail in the case. The idea had come to her when he’d called to say he’d be down on Sunday, with Ben. Thank God for him. Thank God for Ben. They had been her saviours.
Stress was eating her, fist-clenching stress that refused her sleep. She couldn’t continue on without sleep, couldn’t keep on walking the house at night as she had done since Bron’s wedding. She needed sleep and the baby inside her needed her to sleep and David wanted her to sleep in his bed. He didn’t understand.
But she couldn’t do it. She knew she still spoke in her sleep – or little Annie still spoke. Stress always brought on the old dreams of the cellar. These days, she attempted to avoid stress, but since they’d found the body, stress and the dreams had returned.
No thought had been given to future consequences when she’d told her father to run that Christmas Eve. A moment of madness. A moment of pity.
‘Mainly madness,’ she admitted.
But that night it had seemed like the answer for everyone. Get him away from Johnny, get him out of Mallawindy, get him home to May. Give him a second chance.
He’d spent half of his life away, and he’d had a perfect excuse to take off on a drinking binge. His Liza, his golden treasure’s bones, had been found beneath a rose bush at Narrawee. She’d told no one, other than Johnny, of her night drive. Had to tell him.
Poor Johnny, he’d been a seven-day wonder in Mallawindy, then everyone had returned to their own lives and Johnny had discovered there was nothing to return to. He shouldn’t have left the church. He was not equipped for reality. Life was hard. Life was cruel out here in the real world.
Ellie had liked the idea of a priest son. Perhaps his leaving the church had been one of her greater disappointments. Ann had been Johnny’s greatest disappointment, and she knew it. Not much she could do about it. He’d driven down to the inquest. Ann had sighted him in the street, but not in t
he courthouse. Perhaps he’d planned to expose Jack Burton, or dispose of him. But he hadn’t.
Not that day.
She shivered, shook her head. A priest, an ex-priest, could not bring himself to kill.
But he’d killed rabbits as a twelve year old. She’d watched him wring their necks. She’d watched him cut the heads off flapping fish, behead roosters with the wood axe. And he’d sworn to do it. He’d picked up Ellie’s old black Bible on the day he had run.
If I ever set eyes on him again, I’ll kill him, Mum. I promise you.
Johnny had always kept his promises.
Had her father returned to Mallawindy after he’d left May five years ago? Had he gone to the old house, found Johnny there alone? Had Johnny been devious enough to bury him close to an old enemy’s property?
No. That wasn’t the way her brother’s mind worked. He would have gone straight to the police.
But did she know her brother these days?
The baby within rolled and her hand went to soothe it.
Since the inquest, the past had remained the past. Was it six years ago? Six years lost in babies, one after the other. She’d thrown herself headlong into motherhood. There was safety in numbers – safety in the camouflage net of motherhood. Little thought had gone into Matthew’s and Tristan’s conceptions. They had come and been welcomed. Now this one. It would be the last
Until the teacher’s wife had gone missing, until they’d found the shotgun in the river, she’d kept her father and May in a padlocked compartment of her mind and refused to go there, refused to think of them, speak of them. Now the padlock was off and the compartment lid wide open, and she was back to lies and the old cover-up.
Lies were like rats in a crowded cage, nothing to do bar breed and bite.
Too much stress, and the boys respond to her stress by adding more. Stuck with them, within four walls, day and night, and that old wanting-to-run feeling had come back.
If she had told David where she’d driven to that Christmas Eve, she would have had his support now. She hadn’t told him. And how could she have told him, unless she’d told him the whole story? And he couldn’t lie to save his own life.
Couldn’t tell him. Not then. Not now. Not ever. And the old invisible wall was back between them. She hated it, but couldn’t tear it down.
Not yet.
If only Amy O’Rouke hadn’t walked away then the gun might never have been found. If only the couple had decided to camp somewhere else, walk their dog in a different direction that night. If their dog had been on a leash then he wouldn’t have found the grave.
Fate, or Ellie’s God, had had a hand in this one. No one was safe from fate and Ellie’s God.
Just have to keep on telling the same story, that’s all – until Johnny cracks. And he will soon, and when he does he’ll go off with a bang, she thought. He’s built himself in with his invisible wall, it’s wrapped him, trapped him, and it’s so filled with that lie it has forced out the gentle Johnny of my childhood.
‘I still love him. Or do I love only the memory of who he was?’
Tension in her head. Tension crawling in her neck. She shrugged her shoulders, stretched, turned her head from side to side.
The murdered required a murderer. That was the problem. She fitted the bill nicely. Missing for nineteen hours, and couldn’t tell anyone where she had driven in those hours. Still, unless she’d had access to a block and tackle, she could not have disposed of a body. Obviously.
So who had assisted her?
Johnny. Obviously.
The police had made no accusations, but let them identify the body and they’d be back for their nice neat ending. They were not going to get it. She had no intention of volunteering for the position of the accused. She’d tell them the truth if it came to that. But having lied initially, was it likely that they’d believe her if she told them the truth now, told them she’d driven her father to Toorak that Christmas Eve? Probably not.
Would May back up her story? Almost certainly – and she’d end up in jail for her part in concealing the deaths of Liza and Sam.
‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. I was too young, Annie. I didn’t know.’
They had been clever, her father and May. Devious. They’d thought well ahead. Her father had never gone to a local dentist; always he’d driven to Melbourne, playing Sam at the dental clinic. His reputation as a drinker, his long-suffering wife in Mallawindy. And May Burton, strong-willed, independent pillar of Narrawee society with her gadabout teetotaller husband, Sam. Even the clothing they wore. Sam’s jeans and sneakers, his long greying hair and moustache. Jack, the clean-shaven insurance salesman, well dressed, black socks, black leather shoes, black dyed hair. So different.
There had been no DNA tests when Sam’s bones had been found in the sand dunes almost thirty years ago. No teeth to identify him.
Do they keep unidentified bones? she thought. What if they’d kept Sam’s bones, and just happened to check the DNA, discover it was a perfect match for –
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Stop it.’ Repeating the words, she walked the room, shrugging her shoulders, stretching aching muscles.
Luck of the devil had led her and Johnny out to Dead Man’s Lane that day. Luck or the devil had allowed her to find Sam’s onyx ring, like a black and gold flower growing on a reed only a metre from where Johnny had found Sam’s well-burned bones. Johnny had recognised the ring and he’d remembered his father scrubbing the boot of his car the day Liza was reported as missing. He’d remembered the smell of early decay.
What did you have in there, Dad?
A bloody mongrel dog.
A fitting description of twin brother Sam. Johnny had heard it many times, and if he hadn’t understood that day, almost two years later, almost two years older, he had understood. He’d recognised the ring with its shoulder diamonds, and he’d read the inscription inside the ring. Sam and May 1953. How had Sam Burton’s ring found its way to the sand dunes?
‘Oh God, stop this!’
But her mind had slipped into overdrive, as had the one in her womb.
Shouldn’t have buried the cat. Should have let Dee take him to the vet, let him do whatever they do with dead cats. Mass grave. Mass cremation.
Small bones in the garden now. One day she’d be digging, or David would be digging, and up would come Tiddy’s skeleton.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.
Shouldn’t have buried it in plastic. Might stop it breaking down. The hole hadn’t been very deep either. What happens to dead cats sealed in plastic when plastic doesn’t break down? Cat intactus? Cat sludge?
‘Do something. Wash the baking dish. Wash the floor.’ But her back and the footballer didn’t feel like work so she sat, her feet up, while from the study came the familiar Lion King soundtrack. She listened a moment and knew exactly how much time she had left to sit and think.
David would miss the cat. He had fed it, let it sit on his lap late at night while it purred its brains out. David’s cat, after Mandy. It didn’t – hadn’t – liked the boys, hid from them, spat at them. Fat, spitting old cat.
And she was up again. Time enough for a fast shower before the video ended. She chose clean jeans and a shirt, then stood long in the shower, allowing the hot water to rain on her back, on her neck. She washed her hair too, towelled and combed it. It would dry wild, but she had no energy to blow-wave it tame tonight.
Late now. Where had the day gone? Gone where all of her days had gone since Saturday. No Bronwyn to pop in for coffee and a stolen smoke. She missed her sister. Six years between them but they were friends more than sisters. Bron’s world had turned upside down. Poor Bron, she was unaccustomed to an upside-down world.
‘We got used to it early, Annie.’
Standing then before the framed photograph of Mandy, her vision blurred. This was all she had left of her precious baby. A photograph. Golden hair, David’s ocean-blue eyes and that mischievous smile that cru
shed her heart.
Mongrel, murdering cat.
Quickly then she walked away from it to the fridge where she opened the freezer, seeking something fast for dinner. Frozen steak. Frozen chicken. Frozen peas. She opened the lower door, certain she’d saved some chicken casserole. No casserole. A half tin of cat food. She took it out, tossed it into the kitchen tidy. Plenty of eggs. Ben still kept her supplied with eggs. A couple of rashers of bacon left. Beer and a half bottle of red wine.
The wine took her mind to Johnny and Bron’s wedding. Wine had always made Ann happy, but it hadn’t made her brother happy. The cork eased out, she tasted it, straight from the bottle.
Sour.
She forced down another mouthful, then a third.
‘Mummy, The Lion King is finished and Tristan is asleep and Matthew is nearly asleep too.’
‘We’ll tiptoe them into bed.’
She carried the sleeping one to his cot and kissed his face, petulant in sleep. He had copped a few of his grandfather’s genes. The line would continue. She tucked Matthew in with a kiss, and thought of his paternal grandfather, a gentle old man. She chatted a while to Benjamin, dark hair, dark eyes, but David’s mouth and his smile. A beautiful boy. It was easier to give him his full name. He was the biggest. These days he didn’t like being called Little Ben.
‘When is Daddy coming?’
‘He’s going to be late tonight. He’ll creep in and give you a kiss on the nose when he comes, and I bet you sneeze.’ Benjamin giggled as she kissed his nose, and he made three mock sneezes. ‘Bye-bye now, my handsome one. Sleep tight.’ No stories tonight. They’d had their dose of Lion King violence and happily ever afters.
Back in the family room she poured a glass of wine, sipping it while staring at the old gumnut bubble pipe. Then her hand reached for it and she smiled at the memory of a young Johnny.