by Sarah Bailey
‘Did you see her during the pregnancy?’ I picture a caged Olivia Ryan, heavy with her baby, trapped in her castle, yearning for her true love.
‘I did, but less. She became aggressive, very difficult. We would arrange to meet and then she wouldn’t show up. Or she would call me at odd times, crying uncontrollably. Jessica became suspicious and I was beside myself. I didn’t know what to do. It was around this time that Jessica told me she wanted to try for a baby and it was all very hard.’
My throat feels tight and I sit up straight to try to let the air in. I feel the weight of the past few weeks begin to close in on me. ‘When did you last speak to Olivia?’ I manage to ask.
‘Well, of course I had no idea that it would end up the way it did. I saw her, I think, about four days before Rose was born. She was still quite manic but she was excited about the baby. She told me she would name the child Rosalind if it was a girl. And of course she did. I read about her death in the paper just after Christmas. Almost thirty years ago now …’ He trails off in wonder.
This story still feels so raw somehow, its fault lines running across Nicholson’s face.
‘Did George Ryan ever contact you?’ I ask him. ‘Did you see the baby?’
‘Oh no, no. You see, I didn’t know what he knew and I would not have dreamed of intruding on that. I had Jessica to think about too. She’d been told that it was unlikely she could have children of her own, a cruel twist of fate. I always did wonder if that was my punishment.’
‘It must have been very hard for you to grieve so privately,’ I say, ‘without being able to tell anyone.’
‘Oh, Gemma, my dear girl, thank you for saying that. It’s so hard, you see, because you feel guilty for feeling sorry for yourself when you have behaved so badly, but the truth is I loved Olivia very much and not being able to grieve for her properly remains one of my biggest regrets. She may not have been my true love but I did love her.’
Felix says, ‘Okay, so you thought that Rosalind was your child but you stayed away. And then she suddenly turns up as a teacher?’
‘Well, she was a student first, of course.’
I nod, thinking of all the times I’d caught him watching her. I had assumed that he was simply under her spell like everyone else.
‘Yes, right. So first a student and then a teacher,’ I say. ‘And you never talked to her about any of this?’
‘I never once spoke to her of it. Definitely not when she was a student; I never would have destabilised her like that. I always assumed that she knew nothing.’
‘What about more recently?’ asks Felix. ‘Did anything give you the impression that she did know something?’
‘No, nothing really. Nothing solid anyway. When she applied for the teaching role I was surprised. I didn’t expect her to want to come back to Smithson, but she’d been an excellent student, loved the arts and had a real skill with language. I knew she would be a wonderful teacher, but I was nervous about the … proximity. Jessie had died the year before and I wasn’t sure how I would cope. It seemed risky.’
‘Are you certain she was your daughter? Will you take a test?’
Felix’s questions feel cruel but Nicholson doesn’t seem to mind. I suspect he’s asked himself the same questions more times than he cares to remember.
He seems relieved to have got his secret out. ‘Yes. I’m certain. I’ll take a test if you need me to. I think she looked a little like me and we have similar inclinations. Similar interests. It gave me great joy to watch her teach and watch her put on her plays. She was very talented.’
I say, ‘You didn’t suddenly feel the need to tell her about all of this? You didn’t perhaps tell her and then argue? She didn’t get upset? It would have been a huge shock for her if she really didn’t know anything.’
‘No. I never spoke a word of it to her. At times I felt like she knew. I know she felt close to me, but I suppose she saw me as a mentor figure. I was careful, or thought I was. I knew how it might be misconstrued.’
‘Do you think George Ryan knows?’ Felix asks.
Nicholson shifts in his seat. ‘That I don’t know. I don’t think that Olivia would ever have said anything. She seemed to be quite scared of him and terrified of him finding out about us. But he may have suspected that Rose was not his child, depending on the nature of their relationship at the time. She looks nothing like the other children.’
‘Could she have been someone else’s child?’ I say.
He shrugs forlornly. ‘It’s possible. But I think it’s unlikely. Olivia was unpredictable and confused, but we spent a lot of time together. I honestly don’t see how she could have been seeing anyone else.’
‘Why didn’t you see the play on opening night, Mr Nicholson?’ I ask.
He looks up at us and his face is heavy with guilt. ‘Nothing sinister, I can assure you. I wasn’t feeling very well. And I was a little upset, I admit. I had just found out that Rose was moving away. She had applied for a teaching position in Brisbane and was moving there after Christmas. She had come to tell me earlier that day; she needed me to provide a reference, which obviously was not a problem. I was happy for her, but it hit me quite hard. I suppose I had got used to having her around. Of course, now she is gone anyway.’ He looks off into the wild tangle of his garden. ‘I know I should have told you this before, but I didn’t want to talk about her leaving and there didn’t seem any point in the end.’
‘Yes, you should have told us. You should have told us everything,’ I say, but softly.
He nods, but his eyes remain on the garden.
‘Did you fight about it? Her leaving?’ Felix presses.
‘No, no, not at all. I wanted to understand why she was moving away, but she said she just wanted a change. She’d done her time at Smithson, so I could hardly argue with her. She wanted to be in a more creative school—the battle for funding had rather worn her down, I think. We talked about the new school a little and I was sure to give her my blessing. But after she left my office I felt unwell so I came home.’
I ask, ‘You were home here alone all that evening?’
‘Yes. Like I told you last week, I was here watching a movie. I fed the cat next door at about seven. My neighbours are away. I had a cup of tea at about ten and then went to bed.’
‘And then the next day you heard about what had happened?’ says Felix.
‘Yes. Colin, our security guard, called me. He had taken the call from your station and then he alerted me. It is the standard procedure. Not that it is very standard, of course.’
‘Did you believe her explanation about the job?’ I ask.
Nicholson looks slightly pained. ‘I’m not sure. It was quite a surprise but I figured she did just want a change. She had been at Smithson for years. It did seem a little sudden and I wondered if something had happened, but she didn’t say anything like that. She seemed happy, I think. I’ve thought about that a lot, whether she was happy, and I think she was. I hope she was.’
‘By all accounts the play was a great success,’ I say. ‘Everyone we’ve spoken to said she seemed thrilled.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Nicholson says. ‘It really was amazing from what I’d seen in rehearsals. I’m glad the kids are going to give it another run.’
‘You will go?’ Felix asks.
‘Yes, of course. I don’t know much about anything else right now, but I will definitely go and see her play.’
‘Why have you told us all of this?’ I ask. ‘You didn’t have to. We’d probably never have known.’
His eyes settle on me, watery dark pools. ‘Well, I obviously don’t want anyone thinking there was anything untoward between us. But also, her being gone has changed everything. I like talking about her, I suppose, and maybe I feel like it’s finally time to claim her as my daughter. I was so proud of her, you know.’
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Scott: What time will you be home?
I look at Felix, indicating I need to get going.
He takes the sample. John Nicholson looks completely spent as if he’s just come down with a virus.
‘Well, thank you, Mr Nicholson,’ says Felix. ‘We’ve taken up enough of your time.’
He shrugs at Felix. ‘Time is not of huge concern to me anymore.’
We make our way back through the house, following his long strides. I can see where his shirt rubs on a sharp vertebra.
I say, ‘We might have some more questions for you. And we’ll be in touch about the DNA test.’
‘Yes. That’s fine.’
We pause in the doorway. The clock on the wall near my head ticks loudly in my ear.
‘Do you know who might have done this to her?’ Felix asks him directly.
‘I’ve wondered, of course, but I can’t think about it too much. I can’t stand to think about her alone there all night in the water. Maybe she did have an argument with someone. She was very passionate sometimes. I think it was most likely a stranger. Some horrible man. I really don’t know.’
‘Well, thank you,’ I say.
He waves at us and pulls the screen door shut.
In the car I feel broken. The years of Nicholson’s grief and longing ache across my body. They mingle with my own sadness and swirl through my guts.
The police radio buzzes to life as we turn out of the street. An accident on Holmesglen Road. A psych patient at the hospital has threatened someone with a knife. A child has been rescued from a parked car at the supermarket and her parents can’t be located.
‘Well, you were right,’ says Felix. ‘About the paternity.’
‘Yeah. I was.’
‘Some story,’ he says.
‘You think it’s bogus?’
The sky, full of wispy clouds, flashes past as we head back to the station.
‘No, I don’t. I think he’s genuine. Olivia Ryan may have been playing him, of course, so I want to see these test results to be sure, but I think he’s convinced.’
‘You think he’s in the clear?’
‘My gut says yes, but then he has no alibi and he does have motive. He was upset about her moving away. Maybe he wanted her to stay. Maybe the thought of losing her all over again was too much. Might have made him pretty desperate.’
I think of Nicholson’s face as he talked about his long-lost daughter, so close all this time yet so far away. ‘Yes. I guess it might.’
Chapter Forty-eight
Wednesday, 23 December, 10.04 am
Curtis Smythe eyes the mangy-looking boy at the Slurpee machine. He always watches the kids, especially the boys, or before he knows it they’ll be nicking this and that, and suddenly he’s clean out of stock. Some punk even got away with the cardboard display stand for the chips last summer. Curtis was out the front helping an old duck with her bags and the little prick walked straight out the back with it, an ‘up yours’ to the security camera included free of charge. The cops, when they finally came, were as useless as tits on a bull. They took a few photos and some measurements, but Curtis knew he’d never see that stand again. He keeps the back door locked now and has installed an extra camera. You just can’t be too careful. Still, Curtis is a businessman, has a shop to run, so he’s learned to keep an open mind and try to assume the best in people. One bloke’s dollar is as good as the next bloke’s. Sure, it takes all sorts, but Curtis figures that as long as they do right by him he doesn’t mind what they do in their own time.
It’s true what they say, though, that the hot weather brings out the crazies. Just two nights ago he was driving home and saw a woman vacuuming her car in the car park near the turn-off to Fyson, using one of those dinky little hand-held numbers that move the air around. The woman was all business with the vacuum, her long brown hair swinging around her face as she leaned over to do the floor. Maybe she’d borrowed the car and spilled something in the back seat, Curtis reasoned. Easy enough to do.
She should have come to his shop and had the car cleaned up properly, only take a few minutes. Curtis runs a better car mechanic service than the branded chains that are starting to pop up in the surrounding towns. He could have thrown in a cut and polish for a good price, spruced up the red paint really nice. Given her a bonus tank of fuel and a takeaway coffee and she’d have been all set. The plates on her car looked funny too; he could’ve sworn they were painted over.
But Curtis kept driving. There was no need for him to get involved. He had stopped asking questions a long time ago. It’s just like his granny used to say: the world is a better place when everyone minds their own goddamn business.
Curtis notices a gap on the shelf where a packet of batteries used to be. He clenches his fists and looks furiously around the store. No point calling the shit-for-brains cops again. No doubt they’re all caught up trying to sort out the mess with that poor lady teacher. From what the papers are saying they don’t seem to be getting anywhere at all.
Curtis eyes a young bloke with a rose tattoo growing out of his singlet top. The bloke jerks his chin up at Curtis in greeting before disappearing down the back of the shop, out of sight. Curtis straightens the newspapers on the front desk before following him. Rosalind Ryan smiles up at him from the front page. Curtis grimaces. Just clean bad luck something like that happening to a nice girl like her.
Chapter Forty-nine
Thursday, 24 December, 8.47 pm
‘I’ve missed you.’ Felix gently cups my face with his hands, kissing me.
I don’t believe you, my skin cells scream under his touch. Stop it, I tell myself. Don’t imagine problems. But his touch feels forced and I’m trying too hard and I can’t seem to relax. Stop thinking, I think. I need to get drunk, I want us to get drunk together and lie in each other’s arms until tomorrow, but it’s impossible because it’s Christmas Eve and I need to be home to see Ben. As it is, we’re missing the station Christmas party. It was easy to get out of; barely anyone expects parents with little kids to attend, and me even less so, seeing as last year I had the unfortunate luck of walking into the tearoom just as one of the junior officers was attempting to twist his cock into a knot. Plus, of course, everyone thinks that because of the kidnapping I’ll need to be with Ben.
Felix grabs my face again and I think with a start just how easy it would be to blow everything up. To grab my phone and snap a photo of us and send it to Scott, to Felix’s wife, to the entire station. I tuck my hands under the sheets just to make sure they can’t suddenly break away and do it before I can stop myself, to make sure that I don’t shatter our entire worlds with a few quick clicks and swipes.
It feels like every minute of today has been wrung out and squeezed like a lemon, that every last second was laboured. It is often like this when I know I am seeing Felix. My body prickles. I become aware of millimetres of skin that I have neglected or never noticed at all.
The first half of the day moved slowly: an unsatisfying check-in, then a tedious review of some security footage from a private residence near the school that ended up showing two kids snogging enthusiastically after the school play the night Rosalind died. Fortunately, there was some progress in the early afternoon when the hotline received a tip-off from thirty-eight-year-old Moira Foss, who lives in one of the houses that back onto Sonny Lake. Moira claims to have heard a couple arguing on the night that Rose was killed.
She was up late with her six-month-old daughter, who was teething, and stepped out onto the balcony to fetch some spit cloths that had been drying on the makeshift line, when she heard angry voices. It was around 10.30 pm, and she didn’t think much of it because couples were always fighting in the parkland under her balcony. The only thing that seemed odd after the fact was that the voices didn’t sound drunk. More like whispering or hissing, which was strange because the couples she and her husband usually hear are raging and loose, flowing with intoxicated abandon.
From what Moira can recall, this was different—more matu
re, more controlled. ‘It didn’t sound like kids, so I didn’t think much of it,’ she told us. ‘I could only really hear a woman’s voice—not what she was saying, just sort of low and angry words.’
Felix and I were perched on the edge of Moira’s couch amid piles of washing.
‘I’m sorry I only called today, I just didn’t think it was anything. And I’ve been sleeping a lot during the day.’ She gestured to the obvious disarray, just as the shrill wail of a baby bored through the thin walls.
I briefly stepped outside onto the small balcony. The drill of the cicadas thrummed into my thoughts. I could see the top of the tower through the waving gums.
‘Something happened at the play that night,’ said Felix, coming up behind me. ‘She pissed someone off or did something.’
‘I know. I can see her standing down there fighting with someone but being careful not to call too much attention to what was happening. She had something to hide. She didn’t want it yelled out for everyone to hear.’
‘But why come to the lake?’ he wondered. ‘Why be alone with someone who’s going to put you in danger?’
‘I don’t think she was scared at first,’ I replied. ‘Maybe it was someone she trusted. I don’t think she knew she was in trouble until it was too late. It wasn’t planned. The rock was an opportunistic weapon.’