An Accusation: A Novel

by Wendy James

  “What did you do after the show?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you go elsewhere? Meet anyone? Or go straight home?”

  “I . . . I went to DJs and had a quick look round. I think I got some chocolates at Haigh’s. And I grabbed a cup of coffee. By then it was already pretty late, so I got going.”

  “What time was that?”

  “How is this relevant?”

  “Can you answer the question, please?”

  “It was . . . around four o’clock. Four thirty, maybe.”

  “And what time did you get back?”

  “I don’t know. It was probably around seven. Just before.”

  “And you went straight to your home—you didn’t call in anywhere else first?”

  “No. Sally O’Halloran was here looking after Mary. She needed to go home.”

  “And what happened when you arrived?”

  “I paid Sally, and she left.”

  “Was it dark when Miss O’Halloran left?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where did you park your car?”

  “Where did I park? I don’t rem—oh, probably over near the garage. Sally would have pulled up right outside the house. She’s always running late . . .”

  “So she wouldn’t have had any reason to go past your car when she left?”

  “What has my car got to do with anything?” I looked at Hal, confused.

  Hal folded his arms. “Come on, Inspector. Get to the point.” Stratford ignored him. He gestured to a uniformed officer, who brought over one of the pictures they’d taken the day before and held it up in front of me.

  Stratford spoke directly to the camera. “For the record, I am now showing Ms. Wells a painting taken from a basement room of her home.” He turned back to me.

  “This painting was taken from your downstairs storeroom during our search yesterday, Ms. Wells. It has been identified by Ellie Canning as identical to one hanging in the bedroom in which she was held. The painting shows the figure of a heavily pregnant woman lying on a lounge. Is there anything you wish to tell me about this?”

  Was there anything I wished to tell him? I looked at Hal, who nodded.

  “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m not sure what you want me to tell you. It’s not a painting, actually, just an old poster print that I had framed.”

  “It’s quite an unusual painting, Ms. Wells. It’s certainly not one I’ve seen before.”

  “But that doesn’t mean . . . I’m sure there are heaps of them around. It’s pretty well known.”

  He nodded to the officer, who leaned the painting against the wall. Stratford picked up a plastic bag from a pile on the chair beside him.

  “I am now going to show you Exhibit B, which is a pair of red-and-black lace underpants. These were also seized during the search of your premises last night.” Stratford held the bag up delicately. “What can you tell me about these?”

  “I can’t tell you anything. I’ve never seen them before. I have no idea why they would be there. They’re not Mary’s either. Maybe they were left by someone else?”

  “And who might that someone else be? Do you have any ideas about this, Ms. Wells?”

  Hal sighed. “She’s said she doesn’t recognize them, Stratford. Can you make your point?”

  “Miss Canning claims that these items resemble undergarments belonging to her and says that they were taken from her by the woman who abducted her, along with other items of her clothing. Do you have any response to this, Ms. Wells?”

  I shook my head. What was there to say?

  “If you could actually speak for the purposes of the recording, Ms. Wells. I asked if you have any response to this?”

  “No. No, I have no response.”

  “I am now going to show you further items of clothing: these are Exhibits C and D.” He took a pale-pink silk shirt with black edging, and matching long pants, from another bag.

  “Can you tell me anything about these items, Ms. Wells? For the record I am showing Ms. Wells a pair of pink pajamas, size twelve.”

  Those I recognized. “Oh. Yes! They’re Mary’s favorite pajamas. She calls them her Chanel pajamas, because they look like—”

  Hal was glaring at me. I paused, took a breath. “Did you take these, too? Were they in the downstairs room? I haven’t been able to find them for weeks, but I don’t know why they’d be down in the basement.”

  “These are the clothes that Ellie Canning was wearing when she was found.”

  “She was wearing them? Mary’s pajamas. But how could she—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, Inspector,” Hal said. “Clothes are mass-produced.”

  Stratford ignored him, again asking me if I would like to say anything.

  I still didn’t know what he wanted me to say. The pajamas did look exactly like Mary’s, and they were the same size. But if they were hers, I had no idea how the girl had come to be wearing them.

  “Perhaps someone stole them from my washing line,” I offered. “Or maybe they got muddled up in a charity-shop bag?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a bag to a charity store, but it seemed worth suggesting.

  Stratford held up a black plastic hairbrush. “This hairbrush is Exhibit E. Does this belong to you, Ms. Wells?”

  “I can’t be sure, but if it’s the one you took last night, I suppose so. It certainly looks like one of mine.”

  “I am now going to show you Exhibit F.” He picked up a folder. “This document outlines the results of a DNA test from hair that was taken from this hairbrush.” He slid the folder across the table. “I’ll give you a moment to read over it.”

  I tried to make sense of the printed matter, but the writing blurred before my eyes. Who knew what it said? I gave up, passed it over to Hal, and waited expectantly.

  “As you can see, some of the hair on this brush matches the DNA of hair taken from Ellie Canning. You’ll see that DNA taken from Exhibit B—the underwear—also matches that of Miss Canning. Can you think of any reason why that might be so, Ms. Wells?”

  I didn’t understand any of this. It made no sense at all. I shook my head. My voice was barely a squeak. “No.”

  “I am now going to show you an infant’s drinking cup, which was taken from your basement room. Does this cup belong to you, Ms. Wells?”

  “Yes. But as I said when you took it, I don’t even understand where you found it. It was packed away.”

  “If you look at the report, you’ll see that Ellie Canning’s DNA was also found on the lid of this cup. We also found benzodiazepine residue inside the cup. Is there anything you’d like to tell me about these facts, Ms. Wells?”

  “But that’s impossible. That was my daughter’s cup. And I certainly never gave her any sort of drug in it.”

  Stratford’s back stiffened. His eyes narrowed. “Your daughter? You haven’t mentioned that you have a daughter. She doesn’t live with you?”

  “No.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She . . .” I took a breath, started again. “She died when she was a baby. Almost sixteen years ago.”

  “I see.” He paused for a long moment, as if considering this new information. “And can you tell me about the circumstances of your daughter’s death?”

  Hal interrupted, his voice harsh, “I really don’t see how that’s in any way relevant to the Canning girl’s allegations, and as you can see, it’s distressing to my client.”

  “It’s not up to you to decide what’s relevant, Mr. Gascoyne. You know that as well as I do. I’m sorry it’s distressing, Ms. Wells, but I need to ask, how did your daughter die?”

  “It was cot death.” I didn’t elaborate.

  “And your daughter’s father? Where is he now?”

  “Stephen. We . . . split not long after her death. He’s remarried and was living somewhere in Western Australia, last I heard.”

  “And your daughter would be how old now?”

  “She’d be sixteen.”
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  “So a similar age to Ellie Canning?”

  “Oh, come on!” Hal’s outrage seemed genuine. “What’s that got to do with it? Are you suggesting that my client kidnapped Canning to somehow replace her daughter? That’s absurd.”

  “Ms. Wells, have you ever attempted to get pregnant since the sad loss of your daughter?”

  “What? This is a completely outrageous question. Suzannah, you don’t have to answer that.”

  “No, it’s okay, Hal.” I held up a hand, suddenly calm. I didn’t understand why he was asking, but there was nothing to hide. “No, I haven’t tried to get pregnant since my daughter died. I haven’t really had any long-term relationships since that time. And I wasn’t planning to now. I’d never even thought it was possible. But why do you want to know?”

  After the interview, the paperwork, the fingerprinting, the giving up of personal effects, I was led into a holding cell to await the afternoon bail hearing. An egg and lettuce sandwich was provided for lunch, along with a cup of watery lukewarm instant coffee (which I had imagined might be marginally better than the watery lukewarm tea-bag tea on offer). In the late afternoon, I was conducted to court by Stratford and another officer. The courthouse was across the road from the station, but the journey for offenders was underground and involved a long walk down a dim subterranean corridor. I wore handcuffs this time, and they were heavy and uncomfortable, chafing against my wrists. I was taken not to the court itself, but into a small, brightly lit office somewhere in the depths of the court complex, where Hal was already waiting, along with the magistrate and a man who was introduced as the prosecutor. The prosecutor was the father of one of the girls in my senior drama class, and we’d had several friendly conversations, but there was no indication that he recalled this or that we’d ever met before. The business of whether I was to be released on bail was briskly conducted by the four men without any input from me.

  Despite being at the center of it all, I was somehow entirely peripheral. The magistrate—thin, bearded, impassive—gave me a brief once-over before agreeing with Hal that I hardly appeared to be any sort of a flight risk—a pregnant, middle-aged schoolteacher with an elderly mother to take care of—regardless of my alleged crimes.

  The magistrate made his decision quickly—bail was set at $10,000, and a committal would be scheduled at a later date. I was conducted (no handcuffs this time) back along the corridor to the station and, after another hour or so of bureaucratic wrangling, released into the real world.

  It was all so utterly strange, so far beyond my experience, that there was no possible way to orient myself. I felt as if I had fallen into some crazy experimental film, where I was the only actor without a script, the only player who had no idea what was going to happen next.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #10

  Footage of approach to Suzannah Wells’s property, down long driveway. Zoom in on homestead. Segue to silent footage of a young, bikini-clad Wells flirting with a group of bronzed surf lifesavers in Beachlife.

  VOICE-OVER

  Following an investigation by local police, Canning identified local drama teacher Suzannah Wells, forty-six, as her captor. Wells is a former actor, best known for playing Gypsy in the long-running Australian soapie Beachlife. The police search for Canning’s abductor was narrowed down after Canning identified Wells’s property, along with several items from her basement bedroom. A wealth of DNA evidence was also found in Wells’s farmhouse.

  Wells was arrested on August 8. Her mother, Mary Squires, who suffers from dementia, was interviewed but not arrested. Wells, who was pregnant at the time of her arrest, was released on bail.

  It was only after Wells’s arrest that the alleged motivation behind the abduction was made public.

  ELLIE CANNING

  It was the old lady who told me about the surrogacy plan. Well, she didn’t exactly tell me, but she was always going on about this big secret she had, and how she was never going to tell me, but that I’d find out eventually, and it would be, like, this huge surprise. I never took much notice of what she was saying because she seemed so mad half the time—like, nothing she ever said really made sense. And then one day she told me that her daughter had found the perfect specimen, a man whose baby she wanted, and I would be getting my lovely surprise soon, just as soon as she could get him into bed with her and get her hands on his stuff. It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about. I mean, his stuff? But then I started listening to her properly, and it sounded as if she was actually talking about me having a baby for the other woman.

  It was only that once, and when I asked her again, she just changed the subject.

  But later, some of the things the other woman said made me wonder.

  She’d ask me the strangest things, like, did I have anything wrong with me down there? Were my periods regular? Were there any illnesses in my family, anything hereditary? And she was so strict about the food she gave me—there wasn’t anything unhealthy. She told me there were vitamins in the water she gave me in the sippy cup, but when I asked her what the vitamins were, she wouldn’t tell me—just something to keep you healthy, she said, and help you sleep. And then there was the thing with the undies. She’d give me a clean pair every day, even if it wasn’t one of the days that I had my bath. She’d put the used ones in this plastic bag, always separate to the other dirty clothes. I dunno what that was all about, but maybe she was checking them out? Oh, it’s too gross to think about, but can’t you track cycles and all that?

  So after she said that, I began to freak out and start thinking that I needed to get out of there. But it was only sometimes, when I was properly awake. Mostly I just kept drifting, like before. It was like I didn’t even have the energy to worry properly. And for some reason it didn’t ever occur to me to wonder how she was actually going to get me pregnant, and, even more frightening, what she was planning to do with me after . . .

  PART TWO

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  VOICE-OVER

  Canning’s media appearances were managed by Australian celebrity agent Honor Fielding. Fielding, who grew up in Enfield Wash, was visiting the town at the time of Canning’s escape. Initially invited by the local police to help deal with what rapidly became overwhelming media interest in the abduction, Fielding subsequently became Canning’s unofficial guardian. Fielding’s canny management of her young charge’s appearances in the media helped propel Canning to celebrity.

  HONOR FIELDING: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

  A few days after her escape, I was called in to help Ellie cope with all the attention. The media had already descended on the town, and the local police as well as the hospital staff were besieged by reporters shouting questions, requesting interviews, taking photos. Like everyone else, I was utterly fascinated by Ellie’s story, so when the local police got in touch, I was eager to offer my assistance. Once I’d actually met her, I was so impressed with Ellie—she was so smart, so gutsy—I was determined to do anything, everything, I could to help her.

  At the time Ellie and I first met, all that was known for certain was that she had been abducted and held in a farmhouse by two women, somewhere west of the town of Enfield Wash. At this stage the police hadn’t released information about why she’d been abducted; they’d decided to keep that quiet, and most people in the town, and elsewhere, were utterly mystified, not only about who the perpetrators might be but why they’d done it. I guess we’re all familiar with men abducting girls, and sometimes women might be accomplices . . . but Ellie’s story was completely different—she’d been abducted by two women. Well, I guess most of us had never heard of such a thing.

  I don’t think anyone—I certainly didn’t—ever entertained the thought, even briefly, that Suzannah Wells and her mother might have been Ellie’s abductors. Even though, in h
indsight, they so clearly fitted the bill. So when the police and Ellie identified Suzannah and her mother, it was completely gobsmacking. It was just bizarre; you can’t imagine how crazy it seemed. Because I knew Suzannah—I guess I would have said she was my friend—and there was nothing even remotely sinister about her. She might have been a minor celebrity years ago, but she seemed so ordinary. A schoolteacher, for God’s sake! And Mary—she was certainly eccentric, but harmless. It seemed impossible that the Suzannah Wells I’d met could be involved in such a disturbing crime.

  I was actually there when Ellie identified Suzannah, and at first I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Surely Ellie was confused? Perhaps she’d been brainwashed? Maybe she was crazy. Perhaps she was some sort of sadist who was simply making things up for her own peculiar pleasure?

  But by then I’d spent some time with her, and I knew if anything in the world was true, if anybody in the world was telling the truth, it was Ellie.

  SUZANNAH: AUGUST 2018

  “They want to come now? It’s almost dinnertime,” Chip spluttered over his drink.

  I had managed to stay composed during the call, but now my voice shook. “They’ll be here in half an hour. And they’re bringing her. Bringing the girl. Apparently she’s remembered something new, and they want her to show them.”

  “Bring her here? What the fuck?”

  “I didn’t think farmers swore.” Mary looked over from her afternoon cartoons, briefly curious. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet, Mr. Rafferty.”

  She went back to her program. For once I was glad of her propensity to focus on some tangential element and completely miss the point of the discussion.

  Chip looked at me. “I’ll call Hal. I’m sure there’ll be some way to stop them.”

  “Yes, do. But Stratford says they have another warrant. I don’t think there’ll be anything he can do.”

  Chip took out his phone and made the call.

  “He says that if they’ve got new evidence, they’re within their rights. It’s irregular, but her, ah, amnesia complicates things, apparently. He’ll be here soon, and he’s suggested we leave. There’s no reason for you to be here, is there?”