‘Is Gareth on the comms?’
She shook her head.
‘But anyone could be if they used the right frequency?’
‘I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really know how they work. So probably. Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know how secure it is. But if anyone was on it, we’d all have heard it.’
Jack swapped the video for the photos. ‘It’s not unusual for Sam to be dressed like this, is it?’
‘It’s probably the standard here. You should see the news team. He’s mainly behind the desk. He’ll suit up if he has an episode where he needs to come out from it and we shoot waist down, but he doesn’t do that often – he’s not Fallon.’
Jack planted a finger on the screen. ‘That’s our problem.’
It had clicked while he was walking backstage, looking at the backside of the fancy set. The side you don’t film. That was what was wrong with the whole scene. The video, the images.
Sam Midford was wearing shorts.
‘He’s dressed for the broadcast,’ Jack explained. ‘Because he knows he’s going to be sitting behind a desk the whole time. So shorts are fine. But if he’s planning not only suicide, but public suicide . . .’ Jack paused. He could see Beth start to see his point. Harry just stared at him expectantly. ‘He’s not dressed for it.’
‘You’d think he’d wear some pants,’ said Beth.
‘Exactly!’ Jack made a small fist of delight. ‘And if we go back to the start of the video, Sam’s kicking off the show as normal. It’s only at a specific moment’ – Jack drummed his fingers to mimic the point in the episode he was talking about – ‘that he starts to get nervous.’ This was exciting even to Jack now, piecing together the disparate threads into a compelling story. Solving something. After over a year in a prison cell, finally something he was good at. ‘But you told us he was nervous first, Beth. Because you thought he was going to propose. But even as we discussed the difference between a gun and a ring in his hand, we forgot to alter your original thought process. Because we stuck to nervousness. And he’s clearly uneasy, we can see that. And he gets more so as it goes on, but I think we’ve mis-assigned that as merely nerves.’ Jack lowered his voice, put a hand across his chest, putting himself in Sam’s shoes. ‘I think if I had a ring in my pocket, or a gun waiting for me, I’d be flustered the moment I walked on set. His agitation only kicks in two minutes after he sits down.’
‘Oh, shit,’ Beth said. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ said Jack. ‘And he didn’t leave a note.’
‘Is that why you wanted to know who was in his ear? Is it even possible to talk someone into . . . ?’
‘You’re saying—’ Harry started.
‘This might come as a shock, but I’m starting to believe you.’ Jack spoke in a soft exhale, disbelief at what he was saying. ‘Your brother was under-prepared, under-dressed, and, from two minutes in, under pressure.’ Jack counted off the points on his fingers, both to reinforce his point to Harry, but also to convince himself one more time.
Harry’s mouth did a little twitch. Satisfaction? Victory? Relief? Jack couldn’t tell.
‘That gun sat there for up to an entire week and none of the crew knew it was there. I don’t think Sam knew it was there either,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t think he was prepared to die. And even if he was, why not do it in his dressing room? Why not at home? Why here and now and dressed like that? I don’t think he had any other choice.’
‘Our question isn’t whether or not he pulled the trigger,’ Beth said.
Believe one thing. Jack finished her thought. ‘It’s whether he wanted to.’
PART 3
REPLAY
Really Important, Help Me Choose
D/L
Instagram poll by Davia Emelia, May 2019
As many as 69 per cent of the teenager’s Instagram friends had supported the decision for her to kill herself via a voting poll.
Aidil Bolhassan, Padawan District Police Chief, responding to the death of Davia Emelia, May 2019
CHAPTER 11
PREVIOUSLY
To Sam and Harry Midford, the Wheeler’s Cove yearly carnival may as well have been Disneyland.
Every March, because the lucrative summer months were reserved for the more prosperous towns, the flat parkland at the top of the main surf beach played host to a motley collection of amusements, banded together into a carnival by a steel-mesh fence and some jangly music. Nothing fit together. While Disneyland has a carefully constructed route to emotionally manipulate the punters into joy, thrills and snack breaks at the appropriate junctures, the impromptu set-up of Wheeler’s Cove’s resident fun fair didn’t even have a fire evacuation plan. What it did have was a four-and-a-half-metre mini Ferris wheel, a rollercoaster with a bar that sat so high above your knees you had to physically push yourself back into the seat, and dodgem cars with bumpers worn so thin the whiplash would put a rugby player in a neck brace.
Everything was made of metal: the grinds of the mechanics groaned unoiled, and rust came off on hands after every ride. Salt caked inches thick on the glass displays of the food trucks, and only the youngest or the bravest dared eat from them. The sideshows – and they had all the classics: dart throws, water pistols, baseballs at milk pints and rotating clown heads – didn’t even try to disguise the fact that their darts were bent or their targets were glued. They knew they were playing for tourists. For parents too sunburnt, hungover and mosquito-riddled to do anything more than hand their kids twenty bucks and let them run wild.
But it also had flashing coloured lights, raucous music and the hanging smell of butter and fried oil in the air – which, layered on top of sea-salt freshness, truly smelled delicious. In the daylight, the mud-trudged pathways and death-trap rides looked filthy and bare. But at night, something cloaked over the park and there was enough magic in the air to mask all of that. It was rough, it was overpriced and it was dangerous: but it was fun. Kids leave Disneyland with fairy floss. At a small-town carnival, they leave with shins full of bruises. And they love it all the same.
The Midnight Twins looked forward to it every year. Harry, the younger twin, had been trying to convince Sam to go for ages. Sam, who had maintained for weeks that he was too old for such juvenile diversions (words he spat with the full conviction of a teenager who’d learned a great phrase but didn’t fully understand it), had finally relented on the final weekend. Harry assumed it had something to do with his break-up with Lily Connors. They’d split up a few weeks ago, but like all brothers, Harry and Sam didn’t really talk about things like that. Harry had known they were fairly serious, though, not least because Sam had yelled at him a few months ago in one of their brotherly spats over something like a TV remote, ‘You’ve never even kissed a girl, you’re such a baby!’ Harry had pointed out in a huff, not for the first time, that he was only twenty-two minutes younger, and Sam’s witty comeback had been a corked thigh.
Perhaps because of the break-up, perhaps because Sam actually did need something to do on a Saturday night, they found themselves trudging across the carpark towards the tornado of joyful screams that seemed to whip out of the middle of the carnival. The carpark itself had been converted into accommodation for the workers; it was packed with caravans and glowing Weber barbecues. The sea hissed in the background. At fifteen, they didn’t need their parents to take them anymore, and they’d ridden down on their bikes.
On the front entrance arch, a large cut-out of a surfboard with swirly font listed all of the rides and the individual prices. The Ferris wheel was one of the cheapest, because it was the lamest. Harry tried to add up how many times he could go on the rollercoaster and the whirling spider-arm called the Wizard’s Spell. They each had thirty dollars in their pocket, and Sam carried the mobile phone. They had one between them, but Sam had taken ownership when he’d gotten a girlfriend. He was still possessive even though he and Lily had broken up. I’m the oldest, I’ll take care of the phone. It didn’t bother Harry too much; Mum said he could
get his own at sixteen, which was edging closer. But over the last few months a lot more kids seemed to have them, so he was starting to feel a bit more left out. He tried not to let it bug him, but Sam was standing next to him sending a text, so he refocused on the sign. He reckoned he could go on four high-octane rides and one slightly lamer one with twenty bucks, and then he’d have enough left over for some food and one sideshow. He’d promised his parents he’d only do one – they said every game was rigged – but he’d been practising the bucket toss.
Despite spending most of the time texting, Sam did seem to enjoy himself. He was happy with Harry’s choice of rides (they did the Wizard’s Spell twice, in the end, because the line was shorter). They pooled their funds to split chips and a hotdog, and Harry flunked out on the bucket toss while Sam almost won a giant teddy on the rotating clown heads. Harry kind of hoped he wouldn’t win, because if he did, he imagined Sam giving the ridiculous bear to Lily and then they’d get back together and he’d be the baby again. But it was still exciting when Sam got close.
As the park neared closing, 10 p.m., people had started to trickle out. With the energy of several hundred fewer people, the rickety joints of the place were starting to creep back in. Harry and Sam had four ride tokens left. That was enough for either one of them to go on the rollercoaster or Wizard’s Spell, or for both of them to go on the Ferris wheel. Despite the Ferris wheel being the lame option, in a show of brotherly solidarity they decided to do the last ride together.
‘Last rider!’ called the attendant, waving them through as he clipped the chain across the queue.
Though it was only four-ish metres tall, there was still enough of a view of the park and beach for it to feel cool, and enough vertigo to make it feel a little bit dangerous (not that either twin would ever admit that). Even Sam showed interest, sending a final text and putting his phone away to check the view. Along the beach the waves fizzed onto shore. A bonfire crackled at the far end, under the cliffs (when you got too old for the carnival, you drank beer on the beach, Harry had heard), and shadows of people dancing flicked across the bottom of the rocks like cave paintings come alive. Back inland, the windows of Wheeler’s Cove’s tiny population were an advent calendar, squares of warm light bridging large gaps. The tops of trees were illuminated occasionally by a passing car. The wheel went around twice and then stopped at the top while a family of four disembarked the lowest carriage.
Sam was kneeling on the seat looking down at the bonfire and the waves. ‘Must be Year Twelves,’ he said. ‘Reckon anyone’ll skinny dip?’
Harry crossed the carriage, which wobbled as the weight swapped, and followed Sam’s gaze. ‘You wouldn’t be able to see anything – it’s all shadow.’
‘Get back on your side.’ Sam swivelled around and Harry crossed the floor again, tipping the car back into balance. The wind was kicking up, stronger because they were at the top. He had to raise his voice to be heard. ‘Trust me, even shadowed, you’d see me.’ He wriggled his eyebrows and they both laughed.
‘Hey,’ said Harry, after another minute or so. ‘Have we stopped moving?’
As he said it, all the lights in the park went out.
Harry would later remember it getting very cold, very quickly. It probably didn’t, but now they knew they were stuck up there, it seemed to be the only thing to focus on. The sea wind chilled his neck. Sam blew on his hands.
He knelt on the seat, peered through the bars. The park was dark, each amusement a frozen, jagged shadow. Popcorn boxes blew through the empty lanes. The shopfronts of the sideshows were all buttoned down. It was deserted. The whole scene was bordered by the coloured flags that surrounded the Ferris wheel cabin, like a creepy picture frame.
‘Are you serious?’ said Sam, who had also hopped up on the opposite seat. ‘They closed and left us up here?’
‘It’s kind of cool,’ said Harry, and it was, wasn’t it? He knew he couldn’t act scared, even though he sort of was, because he didn’t want Sam to look down on his baby brother. Besides, it was every kid’s dream to be locked in an amusement park.
That said, it was eerie. Every thirty seconds or so the wind would rock the cabin especially hard and Harry’s stomach would go antigrav for a couple of seconds. ‘Just call Mum and Dad. We’ll maybe be up here fifteen minutes.’
Sam rubbed his temples and shook his head. ‘I can’t. The phone’s flat.’
‘What?’
‘It’s run out of battery.’ Sam shrugged it off like it wasn’t a big deal. ‘I can’t call anyone.’
‘Are you kidding me? You wasted all our battery texting your stupid girlfriend?’
‘Shut up!’ Now Sam was yelling, because that’s how brothers fight. Even the one in the wrong has to set the intensity, establish dominance. A brotherly spat is simply a feat of who can yell the loudest and swear the most creatively. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Fuck you.’ Harry knew the rules of engagement.
‘Scared?’
‘Fuck you, you fucking . . . fuck.’
‘Oh,’ Sam said with a snarl, ‘stop being such a baby.’
Harry launched himself across the cabin. The whole cage tilted and both of them fell into the bars. Scrabbling across the seat, not quite punching but not holding back either, laying into one another. The cabin swung back and forth, and a horrible screech came from the roof. They stopped and looked up. With both of them on the same side and rocking the whole thing with their violence, the cabin was dangerously tilted. There was a silent agreement that the fight should desist in favour of balance, and each retreated to their own side, glowering venomously but, at least, on steady-ish ground again. A pendulum arbitrator.
There was nothing to do but wait.
‘Help!’
‘Help!’
‘Somebody help us – we’re stuck up here!’
Several lights in the carpark were on. They could see people sitting in chairs, drinking. The crazy thing was, they could hear the chink of a bottle occasionally, crystal clear like a chime in a music hall. Or a scratch of laughter. But the wind was rushing in off the sea and spiralling up, so although the sound from below carried near perfectly, their own voices were whisked upwards. Unheard. Occasionally, the familiar beam of light of a passing car on the main road would brush some distant treetops and they’d yell at that too, just in case. They yelled until they were hoarse.
How long until their parents called the police? It wasn’t that cold at ground level, but the seaside windchill and the metal cage with its cool plastic seats seemed to exaggerate it.
Sam was shivering. His fingers were blue. He sat on his hands.
‘You could climb down.’
‘No way.’
‘This door’s just a latch, not even locked. I reckon if you use the roof of the one below us, and once you get onto that beam there it should be easy enough.’
‘You do it then.’
‘It’s your fault the phone’s flat.’
Harry didn’t know if he slept. The night blurred past, timeless. Some moments he was counting the seconds, and others he seemed to zone out and when he zoned back . . . was the moon in a different spot? Time must have passed. Sometimes he felt alone, others he remembered Sam shivering across from him. The clink of beers had died down, the lights in the caravans snuffed, the bonfire on the beach down to embers, no dancing shadows left. His stomach lurched every time the wind shook them now. The last car that beamed through the canopy must have been hours ago.
Harry had opened his mouth to yell but his lips felt glued together. They cracked in the corners. All he could summon was a squeak. His nose dripped. Sam had his eyes closed, head to one side. He’d started to cough.
Another flash in time. The moon moved again, bonfire now gone. And, finally, lights snaking across the treetops. Red and blue.
CHAPTER 12
Harry’s recount of his night atop the Ferris wheel took most of the drive from Redfern to tell. He’d hopped in with Jack at the train stati
on, because Harry was ‘between cars’ and Jack had borrowed his father’s Golf.
Jack had had an uneasy night’s rest. He and his father hadn’t spoken much when he’d gotten home. Any dialogue was purely administrative. Peter, still in his red polo, didn’t ask him about his day out, the ‘new job’. Offered him tea, to reheat some food. Jack said he’d already eaten. They both knew he hadn’t.
Jack had retired to his usual confidant, Liam – just speaking aloud to him often helped Jack piece together his thoughts – and fallen asleep in the chair by the window, the soft wheeze of the breathing apparatus lulling him into it. He didn’t have a strategy on what to do next. He’d half-hoped running through the day’s events with Liam would reveal a path, but he hadn’t told Harry that. When they’d left Channel 14, Jack said he’d call in the morning.
He had been woken by a text message at eleven-thirty. Only his second morning out, but now neither in a bed or in a prison, his body was still waking in shock. Where am I? His mouth was dry, eyes felt taped. He registered his brother’s bed. Sore back from the armchair. Put it together. Picked up his phone.
Lunch, Harry had texted. Debrief?
After. Jack texted back. I have plans. He didn’t like eating in front of people.
Okay. Who’s next witness?
Harry’s use of formal terms like witness still irked Jack. Even if he now believed there may have been some degree of interference involved, the word ‘murder’ still clicked against his teeth. It was a moot point whether they called it a witness or not: they both knew where they were going next.
In the car, Jack noticed Harry was talking more, perhaps because he felt Jack was on his wavelength. Beth, handing over the iPad as they’d left yesterday, had remained unconvinced. Jack thought he’d use the opportunity of having Harry trapped in the car to fish for a few more details, starting with how Sam had injured his finger.
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