The guy gave up on finding balance and instead turned by plonking himself on his arse, legs splayed in defeat. At least he wouldn’t be running anywhere. He wore grey jeans darkened to black down one leg, just like Sam’s cracking blazer, but Jack suspected this was water, not blood. Flannelette shirt, a button missing in the middle. A birds-nest of curly hair, extra ruffled from the fight. He’d come out of it less bloodied than Harry but had grass in one ear, Harry having ground his cheek into the dirt. He was younger too, in his early twenties, maybe only nineteen. He had a public-school sports-field of a beard, unkempt and patchy. If his association to Sam was professional and he worked at the station, he was definitely off-screen talent. Jack rifled through his casting notes, thinking where he’d cast him. Sitcom only, Jack decided. Too shaggy even to be the deadbeat but still charming love interest. Maybe the love interest’s bong-friendly best friend.
Jack’s internal filing system clicked. He’d made that note before.
‘The prison,’ Jack said, pointing. ‘In the carpark. You lied to me about being a police officer. I thought you were an insurance guy.’
The young man laid both his forearms on his knees in defeat. Nodded.
‘Name. A real one. Officer.’
‘Ryan Connors. These two know about my sister.’ He nodded at Harry and Celia. Jack noticed he said ‘know about’ not ‘know’. Harry looked annoyed, a red-smeared scowl. Celia lowered the hose, her eyes soft and focused. Ryan Connors’ name had flipped a switch. He interested her.
‘And why are you so interested in Sam Midford’s death?’ Jack asked.
Ryan shuffled, reached for his pocket.
‘Slowly,’ Jack said, knowing full well he had no recourse in the face of an actual weapon, except a garden hose. Ryan brought up a closed fist to show he was unarmed. He opened his palm and revealed a polaroid, faded with age, of a young girl in a school uniform.
‘It’s not just his death I’m interested in.’
It was a strange party that now gathered around the marble countertop. Harry and Ryan had been separated and sat diagonally across from one another. Harry had a packet of frozen peas on his left knuckles. Jack and Celia took mediator positions: Jack on Harry’s side and Celia on Ryan’s. Heather, who’d insisted on joining the gathering, was at the head. Completing the oddity, in the centre of the five, was a resplendent chocolate birthday cake, with white and dark swirls of tempered chocolate standing rigid and tall. ‘Forgot I’d ordered it, and of course it showed up yesterday,’ Celia had said, plonking it down on the bench in front of them. ‘So we’d better eat it. At least it’s someone’s birthday.’ She’d nodded to Harry. Only person so far to get it right, Jack noted. She clattered five plates and served a generous piece each, trying to get rid of it. Jack’s sat in front of him like a mountain.
Celia took charge of moderation. ‘Before we start, no swearing, no details,’ she said. ‘We’re doing the edited-for-TV version here. We all know what happened but present company dictates our conversation.’ Celia nudged her nose at Heather. Although she had gently explained that Harry wasn’t Daddy but his twin brother, Heather was still just staring at him, her mouth slowly over-chewing her dessert. Suspicious. ‘And no punch-ups. I don’t have a hose in here but I do have frying pans.’
All of them nodded.
‘That’s your sister?’ Jack asked, sliding the photo back to Ryan. ‘What’s she got to do with us?’
Ryan pocketed it. ‘These guys already know.’ Ryan waved a chocolate-covered spoon at Harry and Celia. ‘They haven’t told you about her? Lily Connors?’
‘Sam’s childhood girlfriend?’
Ryan nodded. ‘Next-door neighbour too. Hey, Harry. Didn’t get to introduce myself before you jumped me.’
‘Jack,’ Harry interjected, ‘I should have told you.’
Celia was silent. She kept a watchful eye on her daughter.
‘Told me what?’
‘Sam’s mental health wasn’t . . . He’d tried before.’
‘You mean the little fact that he was on antidepressants? That this isn’t the first time he’s made an attempt? I found the pills in his jacket pocket. Celia told me the rest. Five years ago. Around the time you stopped talking to each other?’
‘I don’t—’ Harry looked at the table. ‘I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you about his history.’
‘Because then it all fits together?’
‘Yes. He’d had brushes before. Pills, drinking while we were on tour. I’d have to spend a night with him curled up in a bathtub, and in the morning it was always “Whoops – did I mix that with that?” When I knew that, sometimes, maybe he was actually trying. Seeing how far he could get. The Prince Alfred was his first time actually admitted to hospital. That’s when I quit. Because I could see the toll that having to choose between me and the show was causing him.’
‘You gave me a puzzle that was already solved with pieces missing so I’d make a different picture,’ Jack huffed. ‘That’s not important right now. It’s your money. I’ll earn it.’ He turned back to Ryan. ‘How is Lily Connors involved?’
‘She . . . died.’ Ryan drew the last word through his teeth, unsure. Shot a sideways glance at Heather, then at Celia.
‘It’s okay. She knows about heaven,’ Celia said.
‘When these guys were fifteen, she was, like, a year and a bit younger,’ Ryan said. ‘The night they got stuck on the Ferris wheel. Thirteen years ago. I was only seven at the time.’ He stopped, unsure how to string these ideas together to answer Jack’s question.
‘Sam ran our phone flat, remember?’ Harry took over. ‘When he turned it back on, he had a stack of missed calls. Obviously, a dozen from our parents. But also two missed calls from her. Lily.’
It started to come together in Jack’s mind. He could see the childhood trauma affecting Sam through to adulthood. The same way Liam’s fall had worked its way into Jack’s psyche, always there no matter where he was or what he was doing. Little triggers. Some obvious, like every time he was up somewhere high. ‘People aren’t scared of heights, bro,’ Liam had said, before climbing the rock formation he fell from. ‘They’re scared of the ground.’ Some more subversive, like a slice of cake in a stranger’s home.
‘Jack, we weren’t rescued in the middle of the night. We were rescued in the morning,’ Harry confessed. ‘The red and blue lights – we were so excited, but they were headed in the wrong direction. Towards home. We didn’t know what had happened until they pulled us, shivering and coughing, off the ride at daybreak.’ He checked on Heather, sighed, talked around it. ‘She did what Sam did. You know. To herself.’
‘And he missed her cry for help,’ Jack summed it all up.
Ryan, Celia and Harry all nodded together.
‘He carried that guilt around for his entire life,’ said Celia. ‘And it bubbled over two weeks ago.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Harry. ‘That’s why we’re here. We’re trying to find out if someone made him do it.’ Damn it, thought Jack, don’t tell her you think it’s a murder. ‘Jack, I know you think this makes it more far-fetched. That’s why I didn’t tell you. But think about it. Maybe this makes it more likely? He was more susceptible. Someone taking advantage of his fragile mental health for their own gain.’
‘He didn’t download those photos,’ said Celia. ‘I don’t care what the police say. Maybe he did everything else, but he didn’t do that.’ She met Harry’s eyes, and in that small gesture Jack noticed that they agreed. Maybe not on murder, but on something.
‘Ryan,’ Jack said. ‘So Lily’s on his conscience. That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.’
‘I’m here because of my dad. Because he never believed Lily did it to herself either. I don’t know what you’re all saying about “fragile mental states” and that, but Lily was just a normal thirteen-year-old girl. Someone came in and took her from us, and the police couldn’t be bothered trying to find out who did it.’
‘There was an investigation?�
�
‘No, that’s the thing. Wasn’t much evidence. Hank never would take it on. But Dad’s always been adamant. Back then, everyone assumed he was a crackpot and ignored him. But these days, that kind of stuff is a new normal. Click download. Tell me more. I’ve listened to your podcasts. You can make everything a conspiracy. Dad would’ve fit right in.’
You can, thought Jack, I went to jail for it. He thought back to Harry in the prison: ‘You’ve got the head for it,’ Harry had said. What he really meant was: you’re the only one crazy enough to do this.
Ryan continued. ‘Dad’s never dealt with it. He’s always said it was . . . well, you know’ – he glanced to Heather – ‘starts with “m”.’ Took a mouthful of cake. ‘He has lots of evidence. I won’t do it justice. You should see him, my dad – he’ll explain it to you better than I can. But it hurts him, it hurts him real bad. I want him to move on. So when Sam died, it just brought up a lot of memories. I wanted to dig around myself. I was too young when Dad was investigating it. He doesn’t know I’m here.’
‘Lily didn’t ki— do that just because Sam didn’t pick up his phone,’ Harry jumped to his brother’s defence.
‘She didn’t,’ Ryan agreed. He turned from Harry and locked eyes with Jack, as if he was trying to impress the point on him. ‘I’m just interested in the links between them.’
‘And how’s that going?’ said Jack.
‘Not great.’ Ryan scraped a piece of icing smeared on his plate and licked his spoon. ‘You gave me the brush-off at the prison, Channel 14 wouldn’t let me past the front door, and then Harry punched me in the nose. Don’t know if I’m cut out for what you do.’
Jack thought back to his last investigation: sounded like Ryan was nailing his usual process. He was thankful he had gotten through this one without getting beat up so far. ‘You have nothing to go on except that they knew each other when they were kids, and now they’re both dead?’
‘Not quite,’ Ryan said. He pointed at Jack. ‘I’ve got you. You’re actually the most interesting link.’
‘I’ve never even been to Wheeler’s.’
‘You haven’t. But I’ve listened to your stuff, dude. You cover . . . well, you know.’ He made a Psycho stabbing motion. ‘People doing themselves in isn’t your specialty. So when I saw Harry was talking to you, well . . . I started to wonder why you’d be interested in Sam. And from there, if we were even looking for the same thing.’ He made the stabbing motion again.
‘So now you’re telling me it’s two “m” words?’ Jack canvassed the table. Celia shrugged. Ryan nodded. Heather licked her fingers.
Harry spoke first. ‘You’re saying maybe Sam found out something he shouldn’t? About what happened to Lily? It’s all one cover-up?’
‘Maybe.’ Ryan shrugged. ‘Think about it. What else connects two . . . thingymajigs . . . thirteen years apart?’
‘We’re veering into “everything’s a conspiracy” territory here,’ Celia cautioned. ‘Your father and I have actually met, Ryan. He visited us here. We talked about the impact Lily’s death had on him, and he told Sam some tips to help him through it. He never mentioned suspecting anything different.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want to upset you. Talk to my dad, Jack. Please. We still live in Wheeler’s.’
Jack didn’t really want to travel all the way down to the coast to talk to an old man with what he assumed was a corkboard full of red string webbed between photographs. But a peek into Sam’s history was tempting. He looked over at Harry, who was bobbing his head up and down, liking what he was hearing.
‘I’ve got more,’ Ryan said, almost begging. ‘Lily’s case sounds open and shut, I know. She was in a locked room, second storey of our house. No scuffs, no signs of climbing. No broken windows. But then Lily, you know, H-U-N-G . . .’ He looked askance at Heather while he spelled it. ‘With a belt.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Celia.
‘Sorry. Listen, it’s not just my dad who believes Lily was “m”-worded,’ Ryan said. ‘Sam did too. He wrote us a letter.’
CHAPTER 16
Jack drove Harry home. Celia had boxed them up slices of birthday cake – ‘Please, take it. I can’t look at it’ – and bundled them out of the house. ‘All this talk of murder is exciting and all, but I’ve still got a child to look after.’ Ryan, for his part, had been dead set on Jack and Harry meeting his father, Maurice. He’d refused to tell them any more about the letter, said that he couldn’t do it justice and that they needed to make the trip to Wheeler’s Cove. ‘Besides,’ he’d said snidely, ‘it’s my intellectual property and you can’t use it in your program unless I say so.’ That was a fair point, and whether Jack was making a program or not – he still wasn’t sure he had anything to make one out of – he needed to see the letter.
Jack could tell Ryan wanted to get them both down to Wheeler’s for a different reason. He was impressed with himself, having stumbled into what might be a real conspiracy. More than that, Jack could see that Ryan possessed the classic younger brother trait of wanting approval from his father. He looked up to him. He can explain it better than I can. That must have been harder still, when all the attention was diverted to a sibling who’d died a decade ago. Ryan had said as much: he had been too young to help at the time. He wanted to solve this for his father.
Harry lived in a less salubrious neighbourhood than his brother, in an apartment block on the side of a busy road in Wolli Creek, a recently popped-up concrete jungle of a suburb next to the airport. The street on which Jack parked was lined with hurricane fencing and corflute construction signage. It was dark; the machines lay dormant. Dust coated the road. The differences between Sam’s sprinkler-perfect street and Harry’s apartment jigsaw were abundant. Jack wondered just how different the two brothers were. Sure, they dressed pretty much exactly the same. Had the same performer’s smile. But behind it all, Jack was starting to see the splits between them. Sam had struggled behind that smile for a long time, and Harry was no amateur at keeping secrets either. Two people, born twenty-two minutes apart, either side of midnight. Two sides of a coin. Did different days make different people?
Harry invited Jack in for a cuppa. Jack went to decline, but Harry looked at him wryly and said, ‘Really? On my birthday?’ They stepped on sagging plywood up the kerb. Elevator cladded with green canvas drop sheets. The corridor had black marks at hip height along all the walls. A building recently populated. Sloppy movers.
Harry’s apartment would have fit a cinematic divorce. There was a sink loaded with dishes, empty takeaway containers on the bench. A washing basket on the couch with clothes half-folded beside it. Jack had thought Harry dressed quite well, but these were tracksuit pants and oversized t-shirts, nothing like the crisp suits he’d been wearing. Harry took off his brown leather jacket and lay it over the back of the couch. He took off his shirt, still torn at the shoulder, and swapped it for a plain blue t-shirt from the couch pile. The room was large, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and there were two bedrooms – Harry’s 2 per cent went a fair way. Jack wandered over to check out the view. The city sparkled with night-time lights. Across a small lagoon, airport landing strips blinked red.
‘I’ll give you the tour,’ Harry said, handing him a steaming mug of clear herbal tea. Jack sniffed it. ‘Want something harder?’
‘No, thanks,’ Jack said. Then, ‘Nice place.’
‘It goes all right,’ Harry said.
Jack wondered for a moment if Harry had cared about the huge differences between his life and his brother’s. The airport apartment versus the pristine long-driveway McMansion. The single life, complete with half-finished pad thais, against a partner and a child. Anonymity versus fame. Harry had had to pack in his entertainment career to protect his brother’s health, and watch Sam’s career flourish from the sidelines. A train whined past like a boiled kettle. In the middle of the night, when a plane rattled the windows, did Harry lie alone in his bed and blame his life on Sam?
‘How d
o you know Beth?’ Jack asked.
‘She was some kind of assistant on one of our early interviews, just getting started in TV. So I met her, but it’s not like we hung out. And then when we did the live shows, she popped up again as our tour manager. Sam insisted she was coming on tour with us, and then to Montreal.’ Just as Celia had said: Sam made it to the top and he took his friends with him. Harry shrugged. ‘So they must have become friends back then. Speaking of back then, are we going to Wheeler’s tomorrow?’
‘Don’t think we have much of a choice,’ Jack said. ‘If he did leave a note, we need to see it.’
‘Why leave a note with the Connors and not with Celia? Or me?’
‘I don’t know. Ryan said it was a letter, remember – not necessarily a suicide note.’ But Jack knew it was a limp deflection.
‘You’re still on my side. Right?’
Jack blew on his tea. Harry’s tongue darted out and tasted the fresh cut on his lip.
‘I don’t know, Harry.’
‘I get it. I didn’t bring you up here to argue. I wanted to show you my office.’ Harry guided Jack to the second bedroom and opened the door, flicked the light on. It was a room ringed with bookcases. But they weren’t filled with books – they were jammed with every type of recording media Jack could think of. One shelf had the black spines of VHS tapes. Another, clear plastic chunky cases for audio cassettes. Translucent-green thin-spined cases for CDs and DVDs. Half-moons of black plastic peeked from cardboard cases: records. Everything had white labels with handwritten black-felt-marker. A desk was built into one of the bookcases. On it sat a radio set with a chunky pair of enamel headphones – no Dr Dre Beats here, these could command submarines – and the type of microphone a TV show’s principal has on his desk. The type where you leaned over and pressed down the base with three fingers, where clearing your throat was mandatory. Next to that was a computer with a huge monitor. The hard-drive whirred underneath next to a VHS player, a DVD player and even an 8-track.
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