by Wendy James
‘Oh, God, Jodie. You know there’s nothing I can do. This is how the law works. We’ve explained it to you a dozen times. You knew this was going to happen if the girl didn’t turn up. But it’s nothing. The coroner just has to explore the possibilities.’ Suddenly he’s weary of the whole show. Would like nothing better than to throw a few cups himself.
‘It’s nothing?’ She turns on him now, her eyes red and wild. ‘How can you say it’s nothing, Angus? I’m really not stupid, you know. These are public hearings. It’s my whole life – it’ll be taken apart in that court.’
The anger flares, without any warning. ‘But it’s not just your life, is it, Jodie? You’ve done a fair job of stuffing up my plans, too. Remember how I was going to be mayor?’ The bitterness in his tone is unmistakable, and he sees her flinch. She bites her lip, takes a deep breath, looks at Angus hard, as if waiting for him to say something else, to back-pedal, apologise. But he says nothing, looks back at her coolly.
Eventually, Jodie shrugs, and turns back to the dishes. She picks up a plate, washes it thoroughly. She bypasses Angus’s waiting towel, holds it delicately above the tiled floor, watches the suds drip for a moment, then lets it slip, almost casually, through her fingers. She pulls off her rubber gloves and drops each one on top of the smashed pieces of plate, and stalks from the room without uttering another word.
‘Oh. My. God.’ Hannah, who has skipped her morning class to finish an assignment, is standing in the kitchen doorway surveying the crazy scene, her eyes wide, mouth open. ‘What’s going on? What’s wrong with Mum?’
Angus explains, rather disjointedly, while he sweeps up the shattered remains of the plate, that Jodie is a bit overwrought at the thought of the inquest. ‘You can’t blame her, though, Han. It’s very confronting. But really, I was just trying to explain to her that it’ll all be okay. It’s just procedure. In fact, the inquest should clear everything up. There’s absolutely nothing for any of us to worry about.’
Hannah merely rolls her eyes, as if sensing the hollowness of his reassurances, the bits he’s deliberately left out. ‘Yeah right, Dad.’
‘It’ll be okay, Hannie.’ Then desperately: ‘Anyway, would you be able to help your mother? Finish these dishes?’ He passes Hannah the gloves, a dishcloth. ‘I have to get back to work. I need to arrange things – we’re going to need a barrister.’
Hannah accepts the proffered tools reluctantly, takes his place beside the sink. ‘Why don’t you get Assia’s mum? Manon’s a shit-hot criminal barrister, isn’t she? A QC, or whatever they call them. She defended that old bloke – you know, the one who was on Underbelly – that gangster guy. If anyone can get Mum off, Manon can.’
He has to explain: ‘This isn’t about getting Mum off, Hannie. The inquest is just to establish whether the child, the woman, is actually still alive – and then what should happen next. This is just to establish the facts – no one has to get Mum off. She hasn’t been charged with anything.’
‘But how can they establish anything? I don’t get it. What if the woman just doesn’t want to appear? What if she doesn’t even know? That’s possible, isn’t it? It just seems stupid.’
‘It’s not stupid, Hannah. It’s the law.’ His trite explanation appals him, but this is not the time or place to go into the intricacies of the legal system, or to question his own beliefs.
‘But what if … what if the coroner guy decides that the child is dead – even if there is no body? Mum’s the obvious suspect, isn’t she? Then she could be charged. Everyone’s already saying she killed that baby, anyway.’ Hannah’s voice is perilously high.
‘That’s the media, Hannie. That’s got nothing to do with the law. Your mum hasn’t been charged with anything.’ He adds, with far more certainty than he feels, ‘And she won’t be.’ He pulls his daughter to him, hugs her hard. ‘Now, you get those dishes done – preferably without breaking any more of them. I’m going to give your Manon a call.’
He has encountered Manon before – she is his daughter’s best friend’s mother, after all. They’ve met casually a number of times over the years, at school functions, when she’s driven up from Sydney for speech nights, drama performances, special assemblies. They’ve chatted in that perfunctory way that parents do at those events – polite, but vague, scattered, eyes constantly checking the time, scanning the exits. And he knows how much his daughter admires her: Hannah’s reports of visits to Assia’s Glebe home are always full of stories about Manon – her wardrobe, her advice, her conversation, her eccentric lifestyle. He knows her, too, by reputation, as does everyone in the legal world. She has defended a number of high-profile criminal cases, has a reputation as a tough bitch – and almost always wins her cases. But their legal practices exist in two very different worlds; they have never crossed paths professionally and had been unlikely to – until now, when he needs her skills for personal, rather than professional, reasons.
When he calls her they chat for a moment about the girls, about school, about a forthcoming examination. Unlike most of his colleagues and friends, she asks unhesitatingly about Jodie – she knows most of the public details of the case, of course, but is surprised when he tells her about the impending inquest. She hasn’t read today’s papers, didn’t know.
‘Shit,’ she says, and he can hear her sharply indrawn breath. But the surprise lasts less than a second; he can almost hear her brain whirring. ‘Okay. So this isn’t a social call, is it? You’re ringing to see if I’ll take the case, if I’ll defend your wife.’ There’s a short pause, no time for him to say anything, and then she replies to his unasked question. ‘Yeah, okay. Yeah. I’ll do it.’ He wonders at her quick-fire decision-making – she’s had no time to consult either her diary or her PA.
Even over the phone he can tell that he’s made the right decision, calling her: in the same way that Peter understood the strategies they should put in place initially, Manon understands right away all the possibilities of what is now destined to be a criminal case, is certain about what’s happening, what could happen, and what needs to happen. She fires questions and orders at him, doesn’t wait for him to respond, assumes that he’ll do as he’s told. Which he will, of course – who wouldn’t?
‘Well, you’ve obviously known this was a strong possibility, and I expect you’ve got your solicitor working on it already. But you were right to ring me,’ she says. ‘This has the potential to be very, very serious. As serious as it gets. We’ve got a couple of months, but I think it might be best if I fly up as soon as I can. I have court tomorrow, but I’ll be finished by three or so. In the meantime, email anything, everything you have. And I mean everything. And I think you need to take an absolute no-comment approach to the media from now on. Don’t speak to anyone about the case. Not your friends, not your colleagues, not even your mother. I’ll let you know my flight time, organise a car. I’ll come straight to your office. Just you – it would be better, I think. You can fill me in. I don’t want to talk to Jodie. Not yet.’
She hangs up abruptly, without saying goodbye, without warning.
Angus is not lost, not yet – but even now, the phone dangling, buzzing sharply in his ear, he’s left wondering, left anticipating her arrival with considerable excitement, in a state somewhere between irritation and exhilaration.
Their initial meeting is tense. Manon’s flight is delayed, and she doesn’t arrive until late, after dark. It’s blustery and wet, and in Arding – which is a good ten degrees colder than Sydney at this time of year – it’s cold. She has driven a hire car from the airport and found it difficult to locate the office in the dark; the streets are badly lit, numbers impossible to read. When he first notices her, looking up from his work, Manon is standing at the door to his office, scowling over at him – her forehead creased, dark brows beetling across her forehead, her thin lips tight.
‘I’m here.’ She speaks without any expression, but slumps heavily against his doorway, in a movement that is either ironic, exhausted, or angry –
it’s impossible to tell.
‘Hi.’
They survey one another for a long, curious moment. She’s small and dark, good-looking in an inner-city way that he doesn’t usually find appealing, finds intimidating; it’s a look that shouts feminist, intellectual: dark, spiky hair, pale face, her mouth a narrow red slash, glasses that make her look stern and clever and sexy, all in black. She is wearing layers – some sort of clingy tunic, a vest, shirt, long cardigan, tights, heels – expensively chic, but provocative too, somehow, the shirt’s plunging neckline exposing a still-firm cleavage, unlined chest. Her style is eccentric compared with most of Arding’s respectable middle-aged women, who keep their hair bobbed, their shirts buttoned, their skirts just below the knee, wear sensible flat shoes.
Angus doesn’t like to think about what she might be seeing – what’s left of a once curly head of hair is grey, thinning; he imagines he stoops a little, though his shoulders are still broad, and beneath his plain white shirt the muscle has become slightly fleshy. Ordinarily he wouldn’t give too much consideration to his appearance, but he’s oddly uncomfortable under her gaze, embarrassed by his shortcomings as he hasn’t been since he was a teenager, painfully aware of his own dull rural respectability.
He gets to his feet, suddenly conscious of the oddly drawn-out nature of their silence. He takes her luggage, her coat, offers her a seat. ‘Do you want tea, coffee? Something to eat … There’s a Thai restaurant down the street that’s probably still —’
‘Actually,’ she says, sinking wearily down onto the seat, ‘what I’d really like is a drink – I had a couple of thimblefuls on the flight up, but it wasn’t quite enough. And sweet Jesus, I needed it.’
‘Was the flight okay? Those little Dash-8s are usually very —’
‘It was a fucking nightmare!’ She gives an eloquent shudder. ‘Why didn’t someone warn me it’d have bloody propellers? It was like something out of a World War One movie. I kept waiting for some flapper to start doing the charleston out on the wing.’ She takes the glass of wine Angus is offering, gulps down half in one mouthful, holds it out for a refill. Sips again, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. He watches in helpless fascination. She looks up at him then, and smiles for the first time. Her mouth is small, but the smile is unexpectedly broad, and warm. ‘Okay then, Mr Garrow. If you can point me in the direction of the bathroom, I’ll freshen up. And then we can get to work.’
Manon sits impassively as he tells her as much as he can. The telling isn’t chronological; he starts not with the story of Jodie’s pregnancy and the birth, but her more recent visit to the hospital – Hannah’s broken leg, the nurse who noticed Hannah’s syndactyly, then remembered Jodie, asked about the other child. Jodie’s confused admission that the baby had been adopted, her lack of honesty about the details. The nurse’s subsequent inquiries. Then he tells her everything that Jodie has told him about the events before and after the birth of the child: the one-night stand, the hidden pregnancy, the birth, what she remembers about the adoption, the matron, the adoptive parents. She takes notes all through, but doesn’t interrupt or ask questions.
‘Okay. I’ll be straight,’ she says when he’s finished, tapping her pen on her teeth. ‘I can’t second-guess the coroner, but I have to say I’m worried. Best-case scenario: the coroner decides there’s not enough evidence to determine whether the child is alive or dead and makes an open finding. Worst-case scenario: the coroner finds a presumption of death, rules it suspicious – and refers it back to Homicide. So what we need to do is to ensure that open finding. We definitely don’t want to go any distance down the other road. But at the moment there are so many gaps in Jodie’s story. There’s absolutely no evidence that any of what she’s told us is the truth. Nobody can corroborate – nobody even knew she was pregnant. So we’re going to need something – or someone – else.’
Angus listens, entranced by her capacity to speak her mind so clearly, and to need no response, no validation.
‘I think Peter has done a pretty good job here so far – you’ve done the right thing, anticipating the media, the police. Making that initial statement. Controlling the media. That was clever. But it let the media genie out of the bottle a bit prematurely, which could also work against us. For some reason the media is mad on this story already. And Jodie’s not liked, is she? People aren’t sympathetic – they’re suspicious. Unfortunate, but it just happens that way sometimes. If the coroner finds that her child is dead, that the circumstances are questionable, it will get a whole lot worse. And public perceptions will make a big difference if it ever gets to a jury. Remember the Chamberlain case?’
Angus is finding it hard to concentrate on her words. Beneath the abrupt tones of her voice she has a faint accent. Eastern European, he thinks, a hint of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian or Polish, and not French, despite her name.
‘So. So.’ She leans back in the big office chair, concentrating. Angus watches her, fascinated – he’s never seen someone think so vividly, so physically. He can almost see the ideas coursing through her body, like blood, in her rapid breathing, the rise and fall of her chest. And she doesn’t ever stop moving: her legs jiggle, feet tap. Her eyes are half closed, but her eyelids flicker, her lips twitch. Only her hands are still, twined tightly in her lap.
She opens her eyes suddenly – glares straight at him. Into him. ‘Okay. There’ll be something. I can’t think what it is, but I know there’ll be something, some gap we can split open. Something buried that we can dig up. Something nobody else has noticed. We’ll read through everything. Statements, notes, documents. Tonight. Every bit of it. If there’s anything there, we’ll find it.’
Angus phones home, tells Jodie that he’ll be hours yet, that Manon has only just arrived, that they could be here all night.
‘So, what does she think?’ He can hear the edge of hysteria in Jodie’s voice. ‘Does she know what’s going to happen next? How we should handle everything? Whether I’m likely to be charged?’ She sounds slightly slurred, too – either from drink or anxiety, maybe both.
‘Jodie,’ Angus replies soothingly. ‘You need to calm down. Manon has handled this sort of thing before, far tougher cases than yours. Remember, it’s just an inquest. Right now you need to go to bed. We’ll go over it with you in the morning. Just go on with your ordinary routine for now. Get up, get dressed, get the kids ready for school. Try not to unsettle them, okay? You’ve got to take Hannah to the physio in the morning, don’t you? Well, you do that, drop her back at school and then give me a call. I’ll tell you what you need to do next then. All right?’
‘Okay.’ He can hear her breathing. ‘Angus?’
‘What?’
‘It is going to be okay, isn’t it? I’m not going to be arrested, am I? Sent to jail?’ Her voice is small, young, vulnerable, and he feels a surge of pity.
‘It’s going to be fine, darling,’ he says, looking at Manon. ‘Just go to bed.’
He and Manon work through the night, reading, rereading, taking notes. They work side by side at his desk, so close that he can smell her perfume, overlaid, as the night progresses, by the slightly sour fragrance of her sweat. They both drink steadily – first a bottle of white wine and then several glasses of whisky, but there is no apparent diminution in the clarity of her thoughts or her speech, although by her own admission she has been working since five that morning.
She discards layers of clothing as she works – I hope you don’t mind, Angus? – first her heels, then her stockings, then an outer layer, a vest. Angus pulls off his tie, loosens his collar, rolls up his sleeves, but though he would like to, he does not undo his belt.
It is past three by the time they have finished. Manon sits slumped for a moment on the chair, then stretches, runs her fingers through her hair, yawning luxuriously. ‘So,’ she says. ‘That’s done for now.’ Before he can ask, she volunteers the answer. ‘No. I haven’t found the gap. But I know it’s there. I can feel it. I’ll talk to Jodie tomorrow – see if she c
an add anything more.’ She shrugs. ‘Don’t worry. I know there’ll be something we’re just not seeing.’
Angus leans back in his chair, his eyes closed – he is exhausted, and though he longs for sleep, he dreads going home, fearing the panic that he knows awaits him, regardless of the late hour, his mildly inebriated state. When he opens his eyes Manon is looking at him a little quizzically – as if she has noticed that he is a man and not just an automaton for the first time that evening. ‘D’you know what I’d like, Angus? What I really need more than anything?’
He imagines that she wants something more substantial to eat than the bag of crisps, the peanuts that are all he has been able to provide, and racks his brain for a shop that will be open this late, but there’s nowhere – even the garages close down for the night in Arding. She gives a small inscrutable smile, then says bluntly: ‘What I’d really like is a good fuck, Angus. Here. Now. It’ll help me sleep better. Clear my head. You’ve been so very helpful already.’ Now her smile is wide, is full of laughter, mischief. ‘I don’t suppose you’d oblige?’
There had been more than a few affairs since his marriage, but none of them had been particularly memorable – usually they had begun and ended quickly, with little thought, minimal guilt, utter discretion, and zero recrimination. None of them were passionate by any measurement – they had occurred almost as a matter of course. There had been various predictable scenarios – a few weekend flings while away at conferences with almost anonymous women he’d met in hotel bars; others had lasted longer, been closer to home – one or two clients, as nervous as Angus himself about discovery, one of his PAs, and once – an older colleague. They’d been flattered by his attention – what woman wouldn’t have been? – had been available, willing to strike while the iron was, so to speak, blisteringly hot, and then had been equally happy to head off into the sunset when the affair had run its course – as they all inevitably did. These women had never wanted more than he was able to offer – which was clearly a no-strings-attached, short-lived sexual liaison. He had been lucky, he supposed, in only ever attracting women with a similarly detached approach: either married themselves or not looking for a meaningful relationship – not with him, anyway.