The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  "Well?" Tim was looking at her as if he'd asked her a question, but she had no idea what he'd been saying.

  "Sorry?"

  "Wow, you're really messed up today. Things are slowing down here." He indicated the waiting room. "Why don't you take that walk anyway? I'll cover for you. Just stay close, so I can call you back if it all turns to shit."

  "Really? Thanks, Tim. I guess I could use a chance to clear my head." She made sure her phone was in her pocket and switched the ringer on so she'd hear if he had to call.

  "Go. But, hey, could you pick me up a Crunchie on the way back?" He held out some coins.

  She smiled at his ulterior motive. "Of course."

  Outside, the wind had picked up, but at least it wasn't raining. Jackie wrapped her coat tighter around her body and set off.

  "Hey!" The call came from behind. She turned and saw Liz running after her. "I thought that was you. Where are you off to?" Jackie started to say she was going for a walk, but the sight of her friend pushed her over the edge and she burst into tears.

  "Marcus wants to take the kids to live in Perth!" she blurted between sobs.

  "What? He can't do that, can he?" Liz guided her to a nearby bench seat and they both sat.

  "I don't know. I didn't think so, but I read some stuff online last night—"

  "Oh, Jackie! You know better than to believe everything you read online. God, the patients who come in here convinced they have all sorts of diseases because of the bloody Internet."

  "I know, you're right. But it scares me, Liz. Ethan just hates me at the moment, and he's having a hard time at school. I think given the choice he'd actually want to go and live in Perth with his father. And if he goes, Emma won't want to be left behind. Then I'll be the bad guy all over again for making them stay. Plus, I'm sure Ethan's been in Marcus's ear about how I haven't been a good parent to them these last two months. And I haven't, Liz. I've been so focused on Lachlan, on getting the police to listen to me…"

  "Hey, come on. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're human, Jackie. And you lost your son. You've every right to lose it for a little while. No judge is going to blame you for that."

  Jackie wiped her eyes and looked up. "Judge? You think it'll get that far? Oh, God."

  "That's not what I meant," Liz said, but it was no use.

  "You're right, though. Marcus doesn't back down. Not ever. Why would I think he'd change his mind over something this big? He's always been one of those people who knows what he wants and gets it, no matter who he has to push around. Me included."

  "He sounds like a bully."

  Jackie sat back into the bench, arms straight by her sides holding onto the edge. She considered the word. Bully. She'd never thought of an adult as a bully before. That was the stuff of kids and playgrounds, or more recently online. But the more she thought about it, the more she realised Liz was right. Marcus was a bully.

  "I've got a suggestion," Liz said, and Jackie could sense the trepidation in her voice.

  "What's that?"

  "I've been doing some looking about, and I found a group I think would be good for you."

  "Group? What sort of group?"

  "A support group." Liz's fists clenched, she looked like she was getting ready for a fight, and Jackie's first instinct was to give her one. But she held herself back.

  "Do you think I need a support group?"

  "It's for families of suicide victims." Liz held up her hands before Jackie could protest. "I know, Lachlan didn't commit suicide. I know how you feel, Jackie. But I really think this could be good for you. And if Marcus is thinking of challenging you in court, maybe this would be something in your favour. They could see you were trying to get help."

  Jackie stood and faced her friend on the bench, holding one arm up to shield her eyes from the sun. "How is a suicide support group going to help me?" she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and even. "What am I going to say to them? I wouldn't belong."

  "I just think listening to the stories of the other parents might be cathartic. Whether or not Lachlan killed himself, he's still dead. He's gone, and you're having trouble dealing with that. Being with other families who've had a similar loss could help."

  The sun was engulfed in cloud again, and Jackie shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. Liz had at least one thing right. She wasn't coping. Maybe a group could help?

  "Has Charlie had a chance to look into the case yet?" she asked, changing the subject.

  "I haven't seen him to ask. I was here at the hospital until late last night. I'll try and talk to him tonight. Listen, the group I'm talking about meets this Saturday. Do you think you could make it?"

  Could she? Marcus had taken the kids for the rest of the week, so she could 'sort herself out'. She had no plans for the weekend, and if she was honest she really wasn't looking forward to spending it in an empty house. And Liz was right, an attempt to help herself would probably be looked upon favourably by any future judge who may or may not let Marcus take her children to the other side of the country. God, she needed to do whatever she could to prevent that.

  "Ok," she finally answered. "Can you come with me?"

  Liz stood and wrapped her arm around Jackie, and they started walking back toward the hospital. "I would, but we've got something on." She pulled a brochure out of her pocket and put it in Jackie's hand. "Here are the details. It's on in the morning. Please tell me you'll go."

  "I'll think about it."

  6

  Jackie had driven past the local community centre many times, but never found a reason to go inside. She still didn't want to be here today, but after two phone calls from Liz, she'd finally promised to attend the suicide support group.

  Once inside, Jackie took a seat in the circle of chairs set up for the meeting. She was the first to sit, others were milling about the room or getting coffee. A dark-haired woman, slightly younger than herself, sat in what must be the facilitator's chair judging by the small table filled with papers at its side, and extended an arm.

  "Hi, I'm Margot. Are you Jackie?"

  "Yes."

  "We spoke on the phone this morning. Welcome to the group."

  "Thank you," Jackie replied, shaking the woman's hand as others started taking their seats. She briefly wondered whether she'd stolen anyone's regular spot, but everyone seemed to fit themselves in around her. "Will I need to—" she began, but Margot cut her off with an almost condescending smile.

  "It's not necessary to share your experience on the first day, Jackie. It will help you just to be here, to listen to the others."

  Jackie was going to correct her, to say she was only going to ask if there were any forms to fill out, but decided against it. She surveyed the group, a diverse bunch of solemn-looking people, and couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Was that how others saw her now?

  After introducing Jackie and another new member to the group, Margot invited a man to speak. Even sitting down Jackie could tell how tall the man was, but his physically imposing presence contrasted with the sadness in his eyes. He introduced himself as Simon, and told his story in a monotone Jackie found strangely comforting.

  Simon's daughter, Sia, had taken her own life in January, five months ago. After visiting his terminally ill wife in hospital, Simon had come home to find his only child hanging from the clothes rail in her wardrobe.

  Jackie recognised the names immediately. This was Simon Longhurst, the father who'd fought a very public battle for justice after his sixteen-year-old daughter had been gang raped at a party. Her boys attended the same high school as Sia, so Jackie had followed the case intently. It was the first high-profile case of its kind in Australia, but unfortunately a situation not uncommon in other parts of the world.

  Sia and her friends had attended the party, and whether by peer pressure or just blowing off steam, or perhaps to cope with her mother's illness, young Sia had had too much to drink. Her friends got her into a bedroom at the house, and left her to sleep it off, but at som
e point she was discovered in the room by a group of boys with too much alcohol and too many hormones in their system. An unconscious sixteen-year-old girl in a short skirt and tight top was too much for them to resist, and according to police they'd taken turns violating her, filming it on their phones for posterity.

  Sia had little memory of the events, but she recalled enough to know that someone had done something very wrong. When the footage inevitably circulated first around the school, then more widely when someone posted it online, Sia had bravely talked to her father and asked for help. A solicitor with a strong sense of right and wrong, or so he told the media on a number of occasions, Simon Longhurst went straight to the police. It didn't take long for the culprits to be caught, and Simon campaigned tirelessly to make sure the boys were appropriately punished. The eldest, Jensen Morris, was eighteen at the time of the offence, and as such he was named and shamed by Simon and a number of breakfast radio hosts. Morris was eventually sentenced to ten years, and the high-profile media coverage of the case was thought to be instrumental in achieving this penalty. The other three boys, who were seventeen at the time but eighteen when it went to trial, were not named but were given similar sentences.

  All this took place the previous year, Jackie recalled. Jensen and his cohorts were locked away just before Christmas, and as far as the media were concerned that had been the end of it. They moved on to other stories, other people's lives. But Simon, his wife, and Sia had apparently not moved on. As Simon spoke now of his daughter's inability to cope with the aftermath of the case, and her subsequent suicide, Jackie wondered whether she'd ever be able to get back to any kind of life without Lachlan.

  When Simon had finished speaking, Margot asked if anyone else would like to share anything. Jackie scanned the other faces in the circle, and saw that like her, they were too broken up by Simon's story to talk about their own. Margot suggested a break for coffee, and Jackie joined the others in the queue for the urn.

  Coffee and biscuits procured, Jackie stood awkwardly to the side of the room. She wanted to leave, but had promised herself and Liz to see this through to the end. She took a sip of the lukewarm liquid in her cup, and nibbled on a biscuit more for something to do with her hands than out of hunger. Simon Longhurst made his way over to her.

  "I'm really sorry for your loss," she said, when he stood next to her and drank from his own styrofoam cup. He didn't respond, so she continued to fill the silence. "I'm sorry, I hear that's what you're supposed to say. I can't stand it myself."

  The briefest hint of a smile crossed his face. "That's okay. I've heard it so much I'm immune now. What are people supposed to say, anyway? Nothing can make you feel any better."

  Jackie nodded and took another sip. "Ugh, is yours cold too?" she threw the offending drink in a nearby bin.

  "It always is. Steve offered to have a look at the urn a couple of weeks ago," he said, pointing to a participant in blue overalls, "But council's too afraid of litigation to let anyone do them a favour these days. Never mind that he's a licenced electrician."

  "How can you drink it?" Jackie asked.

  "You get used to it. Do you mind if I ask?" he said, not finishing the sentence. Not needing to.

  "My son," she answered. "Two months ago."

  Simon nodded as a level of unspoken understanding passed between them.

  "Did you find him?"

  "No. My other son, Ethan…"

  "Oh, God. I'm sorry he had to go through that."

  Jackie threw the biscuit in the bin after the coffee and shoved her hands in her pockets. "I'm trying to talk to him, but he just clams up. It's like he's blocked Lachlan from his mind entirely. He refuses to enter into any sort of conversation about his brother."

  "How old is he?"

  "Fifteen. Lachlan was seventeen. They were close."

  Simon nodded. "Give him time. He'll come around. I know, that sounds like a blow off, but it's not. Really, you need to give him some time, let him come to you. He'll need to talk about it eventually."

  "Have you been coming here long?" Jackie asked, changing the subject.

  "A couple of months. It helps." He studied her face. "You don't think so. Who talked you into coming?"

  "A friend. She's worried about me, thought it might help to be around other families who've lost someone. I can't say it is, no offence."

  "None taken. You should give it a chance, though. You might be surprised." He indicated a woman sitting alone at a bank of chairs against the wall. "Talk to Jan. Her son was a similar age to yours." Simon left her then, saying he wanted to visit the men's room before the group got started again. Jackie studied the woman for a moment, before deciding to do as he'd suggested and talk to her.

  "Hi, do you mind if I sit here?" she asked. Jan was a plumpish woman with shoulder-length dark hair and bright purple glasses, which Jackie complimented her on.

  "My attempt to brighten things up," Jan explained. "Please, have a seat. I'm Jan Brennan. Nice to meet you."

  "Jackie Rose. I was just talking to Simon, and he said your son was the same age as mine when he… died."

  "Jamie was sixteen," said Jan, eyes suddenly intent on her hands in her lap. She was silent for a long moment before looking up. "Yours?"

  "Lachlan. He'd not long turned seventeen." Jackie wasn't ready to talk about her son with strangers yet. "Can you tell me about Jamie?"

  "I found him, you know. Up there, in the garage. His father was away on business. He hadn't come home from school, I wondered where he was. I wanted him to take the garbage out for me, I was cross because he was supposed to do it the night before. 'In a minute, Mum.' The number of times I had to hear that. 'In a minute, Mum.' Headphones stuck in his ears, eyes glued to that screen. Did your Lachlan say that? 'In a minute, Mum?'"

  Jackie nodded. "Only about a thousand times a day."

  "I'd give anything to hear it again."

  They were silent for a moment, each remembering the insolence of teenagers, before Jackie spoke again. "Do you have any other children?"

  "I have a daughter, Grace. She's eleven. You?"

  Jackie described Ethan and Emma. "They're with their father this weekend," she explained. "What about Jamie's father? Is he here?"

  "No, Ron works Saturdays. He went back to work a week after we lost Jamie. Said he needed to keep busy, and that's about right for him. Me, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. My company was offering redundancies, so we decided it would be best for me to take early retirement. I haven't decided yet whether that was a good idea or not. I couldn't imagine going back, but now I have a lot of empty days to fill." Jan adjusted her glasses and looked up at Jackie. "I'm sorry, look at me rambling on here. You didn't sit down to hear the story of my life, did you?"

  Jackie smiled. "That's okay. It's what we're here for, isn't it?"

  "I suppose. Yes, you're right."

  "Does it help? Coming here, I mean. This is my first time."

  Jan nodded. "It does, after a while. At first you just want to get out of here, don't want to accept that you belong. You'll have had one eye on the door since you got here, right?"

  Another smile from Jackie. "Yeah."

  "Don't. Leave, I mean. It does get better, and it does help. Even this, talking to you here, now, it's helping me. I don't know yet how I feel about what Jamie did. I don't understand why he did it, but I know I want to keep his memory alive. He was such a bright kid, he could have done anything he wanted. I just wish he'd been able to see that, you know? I wish he'd been able to see his future, to see how full his life could have been. Maybe then he wouldn't have wanted to end it."

  "Are you sure he did end it?" The words were out of her mouth before Jackie could stop them.

  "What do you mean?"

  The last thing she wanted to do was put this woman under more stress, more heartache than she already faced. But the similarities between their sons' deaths were striking. Similar age, living in the same area, both found in the garage, both… she could barely b
ring herself to think it… hanged.

  "You said you don't understand why Jamie took his own life."

  "Yes, but I never questioned that he did. I found him. My child, my baby, hanging from that rope. The stool underneath him. I lie awake at night wondering what he must have been thinking in that last moment before he kicked it away." Jan pulled a tissue out of her bag and wiped her eyes.

  Garage, stool, hanged… "What if he didn't do it?" Jackie said, almost in a whisper.

  Jan looked at her, eyes dry now.

  "Lachlan and Jamie were both found in the garage. Both supposedly took their lives while the rest of the family was out. Both of them were good kids with everything to live for, no hint of depression or indication they might do something like this. And they both lived in the same suburb. That's a lot of coincidences, Jan."

  "So what are you saying? That someone is going around killing our kids?"

  It was a bold statement, but Jackie realised that it was exactly what she was saying. "Is it any harder to believe than the alternative?"

  Jan tucked the tissue up into the sleeve of her jumper and looked at Jackie, eyes wide through those purple glasses. "I'm not sure how to cope with this idea."

  "You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. It's just… I can't cope with the idea that Lachlan killed himself. It doesn't make any sense. But no-one will listen to me." She took Jan's hand in hers. "Thank you for listening to me."

  Margot was reconvening the group, so the two women took their seats back in the circle. Jackie tried to concentrate on the rest of the session, but she couldn't tear her mind away from the similarities between Lachlan's death and that of Jamie Brennan. Jan Brennan sat opposite her in the circle, but every time Jackie made eye contact the other woman would quickly look away. What had she just done? Had she found an ally, or had she upset a grieving mother all over again?

  7

  "Michael Charles Cooper. What do you think you're doing?"