The Practice Baby

by LM Ardor

  ‘What about the clinic?’ Raj said. ‘Tom’s hacking? I looked up Adam Fairborn. There’s a lot out there about him. I watched his TED talk about new reproductive technologies—impressive but I didn’t warm to him. Everything he said was so cold, so clinical. There was something missing. He didn’t seem quite human. You were at uni with him. What did you think?’

  Dee felt a blush start on her chest. She turned to the railing overlooking the harbour before Raj could see the blotchy redness progress up to her face.

  ‘He’s a genius, won the university medal, not really socially adept but that’s not an essential skill for a brilliant researcher.’

  Dee hoped the pause before her reply hadn’t betrayed her embarrassment about her past history with Adam.

  ‘What about him as a suspect?’

  Raj sounded matter-of-fact. He didn’t appear to have noticed her awkwardness.

  ‘Adam is rich, successful, respected. He hardly knew Tom. There’s no motive unless Tom found out much more than we know. And let’s not forget Glen. He’s capable of using a computer if it was open.’

  ‘Tom talked to Leah about the clinic. He didn’t say anything about Glen.’

  ’Yes, it’s odd,’ said Dee. Raj raised an eyebrow. ‘He knew something might happen. Why else send Leah away? He could have been wrong and it was Glen who was the danger. It explains why he let the killer into the flat.’

  Raj nodded; ready to consider the proposition.

  ‘So why wouldn’t he leave some way to get the information he had collected? If we find that we’ll know who had a strong enough motive to get rid of him. You worked with him. There’s no way he’d let all that data get lost if something happened to him.’

  ‘Sure but it has to be somewhere we can access. He has to have given someone a clue.’

  The two of them said it together.

  ‘Leah must know.’

  29.

  Dee knocked on Skye’s door. It opened the couple of inches the security chain allowed. Skye’s face appeared in the crack.

  ‘Skye. How are you?’

  There was no answer. The door closed.

  ‘I’ve brought back Tom’s key,’ Dee spoke louder.

  Skye undid the chain and opened the door fully.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, her voice without colour.

  The place was a mess. Skye usually kept things under control but there were dirty dishes and clothes and piles of papers strewn everywhere. Charlie was on the floor under the table hitting his head against its leg. All around him were envelopes with readdressed mail stickers on them. Some were torn, some chewed; none had been properly opened. That must be why there was no mail for Tom at the flat.

  Dee stood in the middle of the room and repeated her question.

  ‘How do you think I am?’ Skye snapped back.

  ‘Sorry—you’ll let me know if I can help, won’t you?’ Dee handed the key to Tom’s flat back to Skye.

  Skye’s face crumpled and she sat down on the couch to sob.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll go.’ Dee put the key on the table. ‘And sorry it took so long to get this back to you.’

  ‘It’s okay, Glen found the other one in Charlie’s room.’ Skye stopped crying. ‘Don’t go—I can’t stand it here on my own.’ She shoved a pile of rubbish off the chair next to hers. ‘Sit down, please.’

  Dee sat and put her hand on Skye’s shoulder.

  ‘Where’s Glen?’

  ‘Who knows, he’s gone off for a few days. Some urgent greyhound business down the coast or so he says.’

  Dee’s felt a chill. Thirty days would be up next week. What was Glen up to? She couldn’t bring up her fears with Skye.

  ‘It’s tough. I wish there was something I could do. Do you want me to see if we can get some respite care for Charlie?’

  ‘No, thanks. He’s upset too. I don’t think he could cope if I sent him away. It keeps me sane to have to look after him. When Glen’s here it helps.’

  Dee found some tissues in her bag. Skye grabbed a handful, wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Dee spied the edge of a photo album under rubbish on the coffee table.

  ‘You’ve been looking through old photos?’

  ‘I don’t know if it helps. Glen told me to stop but I can’t.’

  Skye picked up the album and put it on Dee’s lap. Dee turned the pages.

  It was devastating but compulsive. Skye cried gently as they looked through the pages together. The collection stopped when Tom was about seventeen. Probably when he started storing photos on his computer.

  At the end there were several loose photos of him older. Nothing of Leah.

  ‘Tom printed them for me.’

  As they sat to look at the photos the pain of Tom no longer being real pierced Dee all over again. Skye became calmer. She touched the face of each print lovingly as though she were stroking her son. Dee looked up. Charlie was quiet; still under the table but no longer hitting his head.

  ‘No photos of his girlfriend?’ asked Dee.

  ‘Why would there be?’ Skye’s mouth curled with contempt.

  ‘Do you know where she’s disappeared to?’

  ‘Why would I? Little gold-digger. She manipulated Tom into giving her the insurance money that was supposed to be for Charlie. You’re the third person who’s asked me where she is. Off with some other prospect I guess.’

  Dee wanted to know where Skye got the key and who’d been asking after Leah but couldn’t ask.

  She put her hand on Skye’s but Skye became more agitated.

  ‘You can tell her from me she’s not going to get his money, or the flat. I’ve got Charlie to think of. What’s going to happen to him when I’m gone?’

  ‘I know it’s hard with Charlie but Leah doesn’t seem interested in money. I doubt she would fight you for Tom’s property.’

  Skye wasn’t comforted. She pulled her hand away from Dee’s.

  ‘Why can’t you all leave him in peace?’ she shouted.

  Loud noise was intolerable to Charlie. He stood up, rocked back and forth in the centre of the room and started to hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. A horrible thump each time his hand connected with his head made conversation impossible.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll go. Let me know if I can do anything to help.’ Dee headed to the door.

  Skye let her out. Her shouts were over; replaced by defeated pleas.

  ‘Just leave him in peace, please, Dee. Just leave my boy in peace.’

  *

  Early the next day, Dee called in at Tom’s apartment block. Several of the letterboxes under the stairs were full to overflowing with advertising flyers and other junk mail. Tom’s and Jock’s were empty. Someone must be collecting the non-addressed items. They wouldn’t be redirected. Skye wouldn’t come here regularly.

  Dee shone the torch on her phone to see inside the box. It looked empty.

  The door behind her creaked open.

  ‘Morning, Doc,’ said Jock, ‘can I help you?’

  ‘Not unless you can tell me where Bambi lives.’

  ‘She lived here for a while but I think she had another place down on Wattle Street. That row of terraces that’s falling down.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Dee asked. She needed to be sure.

  ‘Well, that’s what her mail says. You’d better come in.’

  Inside, Jock scrabbled through a mass of papers in a cupboard too high for Lil to reach.

  ‘The car numbers aren’t up there, are they?’ Dee asked without much hope.

  ‘No, Lil couldn’t have put them all the way up here. Don’t you worry, once the operation is out of the way I’ll be onto it.’

  Dee knew the numbers would only be found when Jock made time to find them. She moved on to the possible. ‘And do you know if Tom owned his flat?’

  ‘Yes, he bought it ages ago. He must have been saving since he was a kid. Had it rented out at first. It’s worth two or three times what he paid for it now.’

  Jock handed her three le
tters originally addressed to Ms Leah Dragic, 437 Wattle Street, Ultimo, 2007. They had been redirected to Tom’s flat.

  Dee knew the row. Unrenovated and unmaintained they were the only houses left in the street that was now a one-way multi-lane link road from the eastern suburbs to the north and west. Only students or derelicts would tolerate the noise, the dirt, the outdoor bathrooms and toilets.

  *

  The door was opened by a bearded male. Dee introduced herself as Leah’s doctor and asked if he knew where she was. He looked Dee up and down and then stepped back to let her inside.

  ‘Another one. You might as well have the tour. And, no, I don’t know where she is. I don’t know any relatives or other friends. You could try the School of Natural Therapies but I think the others did that and the school didn’t know where she was either.’

  He showed Dee the room that once was Leah’s. There were cardboard boxes in the corner stuffed with clothes, books and a guitar.

  ‘So other people have been looking for her?’

  ‘Yes, the insurance and someone from a clinic. We even had a break-in. What idiot would want to rob this place? They only went through Leah’s stuff anyway.’

  ‘Did they take anything?’

  The boy looked at her, raised a studded eyebrow and waved his arm at the mess.

  ‘Not that we could tell. There wasn’t anything in here about where she might be. I looked pretty hard myself. She still owes her share of the rent. If you find her, get her to call me. Tell her we’re going to rent out the room. You couldn’t take her boxes, could you?’

  The flatmate seemed grateful when Dee agreed.

  ‘She’s okay, isn’t she?’ he asked once he knew Leah’s belongings would be gone.

  ‘I’m not sure. I hope she’s just hiding out.’

  ‘You probably should have this.’ He held up his mobile with Leah’s number displayed on it. ‘The others seemed dodgy so I didn’t give it to them. It might not be much use though. It’s a prepaid and I can’t get an answer.’

  The door slammed behind her. Dee was glad to escape without a fall through the rotten floorboards and to get away from the stink of tomcat.

  *

  She looked through the boxes then stacked them in the car space at work. There was nothing useful, no address books or letters or mobile numbers.

  She tried the number for Leah’s mobile but there was no connection, nothing, no message.

  The search for Leah was at a dead end. It would be easier on everyone if she gave up. The children were upset when she was home late. Janelle would be annoyed because Leah’s boxes made it hard to get to the waste bins. She’d already accused her of being distracted. Marlena didn’t want to hear from her. Skye had lost her son and wanted him left in peace. Dee was keeping the grief stirred up. Everyone wanted her to stop.

  Except Raj. He understood but she wondered if it was all a game to him; a real-life detective story to be solved by clever deduction.

  She went upstairs to the surgery and looked at the appointment list. Her next patient was Joy. Dee had been horrible to the poor woman last time. She was probably still angling for Dee to do some useless test. That wasn’t a helpful thought. She walked to the waiting room and called Joy in with a smile.

  ‘Oh, doctor,’ Joy was distraught, ‘what can I do? She won’t let the grandchildren come to see me anymore.’ She started to sob with great heaving movements of her shoulders.

  The nasty old woman had no one else in her life. Dee was the only person willing to comfort her. Last time, even she, a professional who should know better, had responded to the nastiness rather than the underlying hurt.

  Dee moved the tissue box so it was closer then put her arm around Joy’s shoulders.

  30.

  Dee unlocked the front door to let out Josephine, a last-minute fit-in. No one who had ever suffered a urinary tract infection could say no to providing treatment to a sufferer. It had taken Josie seventy-two straight hours at the casino to plough back the $10,000 win she’d had on the pokies. In that time, she’d hardly eaten or drunk or gone to the toilet. Strangely, Josie had seemed relieved to have lost it all, as though the process of putting all the winnings back through the machines was a tough task she’d succeeded in conquering.

  Everyone else was gone. The light through the curtains next to her desk had been gone for an hour now.

  It must be after eight. Shit—what’s for dinner? Oh, and the driving lesson. What would Beatrice say? ‘Josephine’s UTI is more important than my whole life’ with dramatic shoulder-shrugging and eye-rolling. She might even squeeze out a tear.

  But no, Dee remembered, they’d changed plans. For some reason she couldn’t remember they were at Rob’s.

  Relief and disappointment came together. It was a chance to catch up on paperwork but a takeaway in front of the TV with a glass of red was too miserable. How could she miss her children and be grateful for time to herself at the same time?

  Her in-tray was full, mostly with the pre-computer paper files for two medico legal reports. They could wait. The reports from specialists and advertising, she checked or chucked. At the bottom of the pile was a plastic sleeve of photocopies from old newspapers.

  She tipped them out onto her desk.

  There was an A3 size copy of the front page from the Central Western Daily from 11 August 1989. The headline read ‘FAIRBORN CURSE CONTINUES’ with subheadings ‘Double suicide leaves son alone’ and ‘Son, last of dynasty’.

  Wade and June Fairborn of Fairborn Downs were found dead at the family homestead late yesterday. Local cleaner Maria Portello made the grisly find when she arrived after a week away. ‘They must have planned it for just after my last visit,’ Mrs Portello said.

  The couple cancelled their milk and newspapers telling local newsagent Jon Garson they would be away for several weeks. Superintendent Doyle of Orange Police said that the double suicide had been planned for months with Mrs Fairborn stockpiling medications for her back pain.

  The wealthy pastoral family have been dogged by tragedy since the death of four-year-old Evie from snake bite. The infant was found with multiple snake bites to her right arm. Police believe the girl was trying to retrieve a teddy bear from a crevice in rocks behind the hay store. Just two months later, eldest son Wade, eleven, was found dead in a dam on the property.

  Their sole surviving child, Dr Adam Fairborn, was visibly distressed as he read a brief statement.

  ‘My parents never got over the loss of two children,’ he said. ‘I tried to be everything for them but it wasn’t enough.’

  There were two other pages.

  A clipping in stark black and white had a picture of a pretty four-year-old with hair in blonde plaits nursing a teddy bear.

  Evelyn Fairborn, age four, died on Thursday of multiple tiger snake bites. The child was in the care of a nanny when she wandered off to find her lost teddy bear. Her brother Adam, eight, found her lifeless on a rocky outcrop behind the farmhouse.

  Another from two months later, October 1968, reported the death of young Wade Fairborn in a dam. The copy was less clear, taken from a discoloured original, a lot of black and words here and there becoming black blobs. Dee could make out most of it though.

  The coroner has found the death of eleven-year-old Wade Fairborn to be misadventure. The boy was found floating face down in a dam by his younger brother, Adam. Wade, who had developmental difficulties, could not swim. An autopsy found a large indent in the back of his skull. It is believed he slipped on rocks, hit his head and stumbled semi-conscious into the dam.

  Dee reread the pages and checked her in-tray again. That was it, no more documents and no indication of how they got there.

  Where did the clippings come from? Not a letter—there was no note attached—just the date and source written on each page in a neat regular straight-up-and-down hand. The hairs on Dee’s forearms sat up. It was the precise handwriting of Tom—a ghostly reach from the grave. Sweet, excited Tom who should be alive,
who would be alive if he hadn’t been murdered. He had made these copies but who had sent them? Possibly, probably, Leah. If Dee could find out where they were sent from she had a chance of finding Leah.

  Dee got up to search the wastepaper baskets—they were all empty. She sat down to reread the newspaper clippings about Adam’s family tragedies. Why would Tom go to so much trouble to delve into Adam’s childhood?

  Only Leah would know. No one had seen her since the night she’d climbed into Dee’s car. She wasn’t at the funeral. Was she in danger?

  Dee had to know.

  Janelle picked up after eight rings.

  ‘Sorry, I know you’re putting the kids to bed but I need to know where those photocopies came from.’

  ‘Photocopies?’

  ‘You know, in the mail today.’

  ‘Tania did the mail and she’s gone out dancing tonight.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The tiny hope of a lead was doused by the knowledge that Tania was uncontactable. Even so, Tania’s head was in a different universe most of the time. The chance of her recalling a task like opening the mail was minuscule.

  ‘Like her brain,’ Dee added silently.

  ‘Are you okay? You’re not still at work at nine o’clock are you?’ asked Janelle.

  The automatic mother-guilt jabbed Dee before she could block it with the thought, They’re at Rob’s.

  ‘Yes, at work and no, not really okay.’

  Janelle made a noise of concern as Dee caught up with what she had said.

  ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. It’s okay, I’m just worried about Tom Harris’s girlfriend. No one’s seen her but I think she sent me some newspaper clippings and I thought the envelope might give me a clue about where she is.’

  ‘Did you try the recycling?’

  ‘Good idea, thanks.’ Dee hung up.