An Isolated Incident (14 page)

She leant against the outside wall of the Royal, closed her eyes. ‘Craig?'

‘May. Thank God. It's so good to hear your voice. How are you?'

‘I'm okay.'

‘I miss you so much.'

‘Why haven't you called? I've been –'

‘I know, I know. Carmel made me take leave so we can work full time on saving our marriage and it's just been impossible for me to get away for even a second. She's watching me like a hawk. This afternoon's her mummy-to-be yoga class though, so . . . God, when can I see you? We need to figure something out, soon.'

‘Are you serious?'

‘Of course.'

‘Craig, you can't just –'

‘I know you're hurt, but . . .'

‘I can't do this right now. I'm about to meet a source. It's important. I can't be all fucking teary.'

‘Sorry, sorry.' He took a long, deep breath. ‘What are you working on?'

‘Obviously you don't read my work then.'

‘I can't read it with Carmel around, can I? You've got no idea what it's been like here . . . Look, tell me about what you're working on. I want to know.'

‘Woman murdered in Strathdee. It's this godforsaken truck stop of a town. I'm hanging around straining to come up with new angles on week-old news, hoping there'll be a breakthrough and I'll be the last reporter left standing.'

‘Shit. Yeah. I heard about that poor girl. Awful you have to stay there. Is it safe?'

‘Sure. I don't know. I think so.' May saw Chas climbing out of a gleaming, dark green ute. ‘I'm going to have to go. When can I –'

‘No, come on, don't go yet. Carmel's not due back for an hour and I don't know when I'll have the chance to call again. Christ, May, I miss you. We need to find a way to make this work. Right? Right?'

May swallowed a sob. ‘I have to go.'

She hung up, flicked the phone to silent, stepped through the door Chas was holding open for her. The pub was half full. May scanned for Chris Rogers but could see only a scrawny blonde and the ancient owner behind the bar. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and it was all she could do not to reach for it.

‘You right?' Chas asked. ‘Your face is all pink.'

‘Bad day.'

He led her to a table up the back, pulled out her chair. ‘Something stronger than beer then. You a gin, vodka or whisky girl?'

‘I shouldn't.'

‘Why?'

‘I'm working.'

‘You can't work pissed? Geez, call yourself a journo.'

She laughed. ‘I'll have a beer.'

‘One whisky double coming right up.'

‘You're not a great listener, are you?'

He leant in close, both forearms on the table. ‘I'm more of face-reader. And your face is telling me you need –'

‘I'm not going to get drunk and have sex with you.'

He moved closer. She could smell his smoky breath and count his pale eyelashes. ‘That's cool. We can do it sober.'

Her phone vibrated again. She pulled it out, pressed ignore. The clock flashed up. Four hours until she had to file. ‘What are we doing hanging around here, then?' she said.

He blinked, rocked back on his heels. Oh God, May thought, he was joking. He was joking and now I've made a complete and utter fool of my stupid slutty self.

A slow smile. ‘Well, alright, alright.' He nodded towards the door.

As they left May thought she heard someone call out his name and something like ‘good on ya' – or maybe it was ‘get on her'? Chas didn't seem to hear it. He kept walking naturally, not touching her or even smiling until they were across the road and in her room with the door locked and the curtains closed against the stupidly bright autumn sun.

May waited several minutes longer than what she thought might be the appropriate amount of time and then nudged Chas's shoulder. ‘Don't mean to be rude, but you need to go.'

He pulled himself up onto his elbows and looked into her face. Sweat dripped from between his eyebrows onto her lips. ‘You Sydney girls, always in such a hurry.'

‘I need to work. I've got a deadline.'

‘It's okay. I won't bother you.' He rolled to the side, pulled the sheet up over his torso, feigned sleep.

‘Don't you have a home to go to?'

‘Can't hear you. Sleeping.'

May went to the bathroom, rinsed off under the shower and dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt. She smiled at herself in the mirror and thought it looked real enough. When she returned to the room, Chas was up and dressed, flicking through her notebook.

She took it from him, swatted his arm with it. ‘That's confidential.'

‘Can't read your writing anyway. Like a bloody spider's web.' He went to the fridge, pulled out a can of beer and cracked it open. ‘Looks like the last one. Share?'

She took the can, slugged some down, passed it back to him. She picked her pants up from the floor and dug her phone from the pocket. Four missed calls from the bastard. No new messages.

‘So what's the latest on Bella? Is there a suspect?'

She shook her head. ‘Police say they're following several lines of inquiry. Won't say what they are. Most people I've talked to around town seem to think it was an outsider. Someone passing through.'

‘Makes sense.'

‘Why?'

He handed her the beer. ‘We all know each other here. Well, not personally, but we all know someone who knows someone who knows someone, if you get what I mean. Anyone here who could do that, we'd be aware before now. Word'd get round. It always does.'

‘Always? So you've had things like this happen before?'

‘Not like this. That's what I'm saying. I'll be the first to admit there're some shitheads in this place. Wife beaters, daughter rapers, cat poisoners . . .'

‘Cat poisoners? Plural?'

‘Yep. But we know who they are. Sometimes we know because they're in and out of jail and sometimes we know because we talk, but either way we know. Like little Tegan. We all knew her husband was a violent cunt. Soon as we heard she was dead we were like, yep, yep, saw that one coming.'

‘Saw it coming. Christ.'

‘What? You think we could've stopped it?'

‘I don't know. Did you try?'

‘Fair go. Didn't even know her except as that pinch-faced little mouse who worked in the shit bakery, the one you go to on Sundays only because the good one's shut then.'

‘But you knew her husband was violent?'

‘Yeah, because people talk. That's what I'm saying. There are a hundred girls working cash registers here – don't know one from the other unless there's a reason to. Like, people say, “Did ya see poor Tegan at the bakery? Back from her honeymoon a week and already sporting a shiner,” and you'll go, “Which one's Tegan? The blonde with the tits or the brunette with the legs?” And they'll go, “Nah, nah, the quiet little thing at Morello's,” and then you know who Tegan is and you know her old man belts her and so each time you need to get bread on a Sunday you see her and sometimes she's normal and sometimes she looks like she's never slept and once or twice she's bruised and you say, “Alright?” and she goes, “Can't complain,” and you get your bread and walk away and if you bump into someone you know on the way home you tell 'em, “Dickhead's laid into her again, looks like.” '

‘Fucking hell, this place.'

‘Point is, you hear about something – bashing, car theft, cat poisoning and go, “Oh, yeah, I bet so-and-so is behind that,” but what happened to Bella . . . Can't think of a man'd do that. No one here can.'

‘What about Nate Cartwright?'

‘Nah. Barking up the wrong tree there. He's alright, Nate.'

‘People can hide themselves pretty well, you know.'

‘You can't hide being that fucked up.'

‘Maybe the more fucked up you are, the better you are at hiding.'

‘By that reasoning it could be anyone.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Could be me.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Do you really think that?'

‘I guess. I mean, I obviously don't think it's likely or I wouldn't be here, but, you know, whoever it was is with someone right now – a wife, a girlfriend, a mate – and that person is thinking the same thing.'

‘That's fucked up.'

‘Tell me about it.'

I was in the storeroom behind the pool table at the back of the pub when I heard these four blokes talking. Blokes I knew. Regulars. Two I'd fucked, one I wouldn't have minded before this.

‘She had that smile, you know?'

‘Yep. Like Chris, but, eh, y'know, fresher. Sunny.'

‘Fuckin' shame.'

‘You can 'magine it, though, eh? Smile like that, buncha blokes out on the piss, looking for trouble.'

‘It was five o'clock in the fucking afternoon. They wouldna been on the piss.'

‘Nah, wouldna been on the piss. Prob'ly Muzzies out from the city. You know how they drive around, the Lebs and that, fucking hoon around in their wog cars. See a girl like that.'

‘That smile.'

‘Not just that. The blonde hair. Nice, sweet white girl. Prob'ly wanted a virgin, y'know? Prob'ly out looking for someone they could really, like, fuckin' degrade. Fuckin' grubs.'

‘She wasn't, but. Pete – plumber Pete, not bottle-o Pete – he used to go out with her. He's not saying much, pretty cut up about it all, you know, but back when they were going out – look, I don't wanna speak ill of the – I'm just sayin' she wasn't no virgin.'

‘Missing the fuckin' point, mate. I'm not saying she was or wasn't. I'm saying it's what those grubs woulda thought, lookin' at her. They woulda wanted someone who looked
pure
, you know?'

‘Yeah. Yeah. Bloody hell. You know what they did to her? Like, not what's in the papers, but what I heard from me mate who knows one of the coppers who saw her? Sick shit. Some seriously sick shit.'

I hip-bumped the door open, my torso and face guarded by the double-stacked boxes of serviettes I carried. I felt, rather than heard, their silence. I kicked the door closed behind me.

‘Chris! Shit, let me help you with that, hey?' It was Hock. Red bushy beard, biceps the size of my thighs. So much my type it's ridiculous. I pretended I didn't hear. Carried my burden across to the bar.

I was halfway through unpacking the boxes, sliding the little plastic-wrapped bundles of serviettes into the nooks behind the bar, when Hock came up and ordered another round.

‘How you doing, Chris?' he said while I was pouring
.

‘
Oh, you know. Good as can be expected.'

‘Yeah, yeah. Surprised to see you here, to be honest.'

‘Yeah, well, no point sitting around feeling sorry for myself, is there?' I put his beers on a tray and told him how much and he paid.

‘Ah, you've always been a tough nut.' He picked up the drinks. ‘Come have a drink with us after you finish, hey?'

‘Working till close.'

‘Well, if you feel like it then, I'll grab some takeaways, drive you home.'

‘Thanks, mate, but not likely I'll feel like it, you know?'

He nodded. ‘Yeah, 'course, 'course. Another time? When things are back to normal.'

And off he went.
You know what they did to her? When things are back to normal
. Honest to God. Like, seriously. Honest to fucking bastard God.

*

That night I woke up sudden, like someone had screamed in my ear. I sat up, listening, one hand on my phone ready to call 000, but there was nothing to hear. I was sweating all over. When my heart stopped racing, I stood up and turned on the light. My hand on the switch was streaked with blood.

I don't think I took it in at first. I kind of stood there looking at it. I looked at my other hand and it had a rusty streak on it too. I sat down hard, started thinking – oh, God, all kinds of crazy things, I can't even tell you what – and then I noticed the blood on the front of my nightie and on the inside of my thighs and, Jesus, I nearly hyperventilated. The things going through my mind. Well, they were the things always going through my mind but this time happening to me instead of her.

I called Nate. He answered straightaway, panic in his voice, and I told him he had to come and hung up and sat still listening to the sounds of the house and the street, just looking at this nightmare mess.

Look, I know I'm mad and all but I swear I'm not as stupid as this story makes me sound. Thing is I hadn't had my period in yonks. After Nate and me had tried for a baby for a couple of years, I saw a doctor and found out I couldn't. So after that I went back on the pill to save myself the bastard cramps and breakouts that always came with my monthlies. I'd been on it ever since, skipping those little sugar pills and living without the useless blood-letting. 'Course, with all that had happened I'd forgotten to refill the prescription which I remembered now had run out the day the cop came to the door to tell me they'd found her. I'd had it in my bag, ready to go. It's probably still there, crumpled beneath all the detective and reporter business cards, the fresh and used tissues.

Once I realised, I ran to the bathroom and jumped in the shower, chucked my nightie underneath a bunch of other stuff in the basket in case Nate came in. He turned up just as I was getting out, came running through the house calling my name. I wrapped up in a towel and met him as he was about to barge into the bathroom.

‘You okay? What's happened?'

‘Yeah, sorry. I had a bad turn. Woke up in a big panic, thought that . . . I don't know what. I'm fine now.'

He took a few big breaths, looked over my head the way he always did when he was pissed off. ‘I thought you were hurt. You sounded like you were being –'

‘I know, like I said, I woke up in this state and I think I was still kind of out of it when I called you. Sorry.'