An Isolated Incident (19 page)

He passed the remaining pie from hand to hand. ‘Sorry to love ya and leave ya, but I've gotta get back before the boss has a shit attack.'

‘It's cool. I'm going to hang around here a bit. See what I can dig up.'

Chas held his pie still, looked over her shoulder. ‘Be careful, hey?'

‘Of what?'

‘You know. Girl hanging around a pub on her own.'

‘Yeah? How I met you wasn't it? Turned out alright.'

‘Not everyone's as sweet as me. Next time you mightn't be so lucky.'

‘I'll take my chances. Thanks for your concern though. I really appreciate it.'

‘Yeah, I can tell.' He started down the verandah steps, stopped, turned only his head back towards her. ‘Glad you called, hey.'

May watched him cross the road, climb into his truck, pull out onto the road and disappear onto the highway. She finished her cigarette and headed back into the dim cool of the pub, ordered another beer and settled herself at the bar. Everyone knew who she was by now, no point lurking in the shadows.

A middle-aged man in footy shorts and a white singlet leant against the bar an inch from her elbow. ‘How's it goin'?' he said to her thigh.

‘Yeah, good. You?'

‘Yep, yep.' He ordered a beer, turned so he could look directly into May's face. He was close enough she could've counted the broken blood vessels on his swollen nose. ‘You one of them light-skinned Abos or something?'

May held her nerve the way she knew a woman with a near-stranger's semen turning her undies stiff who had just quit her job in order to follow a nothing story in a shithole town would do. ‘Or something,' she said.

‘Huh.' He backed off a little but kept staring at her as he necked his beer, putting it down every so often to check his dick was where he left it.

When he finished his drink he ordered another, pushed his hip against the outside of her leg while he waited. When she didn't react he picked up his glass and shuffled to the other end of the bar where a trio of drunks leant and gulped and mumbled. ‘Thinks her shit don't stink, that one,' he said, settling into the group, his back to May.

‘Pro'ly bottles her piss and tries to sell it as perfume,' one of the others said, and they all cackled.

The old bloke behind the bar glanced across at May with a small apologetic smile. ‘They're harmless,' he said in a low voice.

‘Them too, hey?'

He looked at her blankly.

‘Listen, do you think you could do me a favour?'

‘Mmm?'

‘I really need to get in touch with –'

‘Nah, love.' He held his hands up. ‘Can't be having reporters sniffing around. I'm alright with ya drinking here or hanging out with your bloke or whatever, but there'll be no reporting business. Gotta be firm on that.'

‘Of course. Sorry.'

He nodded and moved along down the other end of the bar, leant into the group of men and talked low the way he had to her. She strained to hear. Was he saying
Chas
?
There was laughter and more mumbling and she heard it clearly this time:
gash
.

Her throat constricted. A word overheard her first year of high school, spoken with thrilled disgust. A moment of puzzling over its use in this context and then the sick surge as she understood. She felt it now, the subterranean hatred. Gash.

Chas had warned her. He knew those men, probably joked with them just like that when no women were around. He had fucked her sweetly but the words must be in his mind. Must be in his like they were in hers. However sweet it was, there was always after and after there was remembering – being reminded – of what you are. Gash, slit, axe wound, cunt.

She felt it again, the craving for the feel of flesh folding around her fist, the vibration up her arm as skull hit wood. She left her half-drunk beer, slid off the stool. Heard the snickering. Stuck up her middle finger as she walked out, feeling like a coward. Like a wretched bloody pussy.

Friday, 17 April

I
magine it from my point of view. All week I've had journalists knocking on my door, pushing cards into my hand. More each day it felt like, and I didn't know if that was because they knew Nate was gone or what, but it was getting so I was never not on edge at home, always waiting for the next knock. Old Grey had promised to personally boot out any reporters who bothered me at work and Suze told me he'd been gathering up all the flowers and teddy bears and prayer cards and other useless, heartfelt shit that people left for me and dropping it at the hospital before I arrived each day. God, I appreciated it. Made me feel that, despite it all, I could relax a little there, just be Chris. Ironic, I'd say, yeah, feeling on display at home but nice and private surrounded by mouthy drunks and gossips.

Anyways, that was where my head was at when I answered a call at the pub and this sweet little voice goes, ‘Chris! At last!', as though the two of us are old friends who've been playing phone tag all week. I ask who it is and the little voice says, ‘It's May Norman and I am truly sorry to call you at work but it's so important that I speak to you,' and I'm about to hang up but that man I stupidly took home the other night is heading for the bar and so I turn my back on him, phone in hand and I say, ‘Important why?'

‘Because, Chris, I'm sorry to say it but the police aren't getting anywhere and the longer this goes on the less likely it is they'll find who did this and, you know, I really think more can be done.' Such a sweet, sweet little girl's voice. I suspect you know that. Something that can't be helped but can be put to good use. Girlish voice, the reporter's version of the barmaid's big tits.

‘Yeah, like what?'

‘Better news coverage. More publicity.'

‘Fucking hell, you listen –'

‘Chris, I can help you. I can. Sit down with me for one –'

‘You have a hide calling me while I'm here and –' In my rage I'd turned back around, raised my voice. The man was leaning in close, listening, frowning like he had a right. I dropped my voice, tried for a calmer tone. ‘I just want to be left alone, okay? Please.'

‘Chris, I understand, I do, but one really good, strong, detailed interview that lets the people of Australia really
know
Bella could make all the difference. I wouldn't be bothering you like this if I didn't think so.'

I guess my face showed more than I'd've liked because the man leant right over the bar and touched my elbow and mouthed, ‘You okay?' I pulled back like he'd burnt me and I said, into the phone, but to him really, ‘Okay, yeah, all good.'

And the man watched while I faked a goddamn smile and said, ‘Yep, great,' while Little Miss Sweetie-pie gushed that she'd see me the next morning at eleven.

I rang Nate at home, because I was really trying to respect his boundaries and only call his mobile in an emergency (as though life itself wasn't one). Renee answered and so I did the totally-over-it adult thing and asked how she was, how the baby was growing and she said it was all wonderful and I'd have to come up and meet him when he was born, and then she said in this extra-low, concerned voice, ‘And how are you, Chris?' And I was like ‘fine, fine' of course, but she wouldn't let it go, she made a little tutting noise and she said, ‘No, really, Chris, listen – I've had a lot of experience with grief and I know how fierce and confusing and overwhelming it can be. You don't have to say you're fine if you aren't.'

I did consider what she said and then considered what a more honest answer to her question would be and then I was torn in half and turned inside out. Sitting there in the back office of the pub with the phone in my hand I became a gaping hole of horror and blackness and despair and Renee said, ‘Chris? You there?' and I flipped back into my skin the right way again and I said, ‘Yeah, sorry, I can't talk much now, that's all. But listen, is your old man there? I need to ask him something, real quick.'

The rest of the night went okay, especially since Grey stayed back to do the accounts and so I could honestly tell that man who was hanging around that I was working late and getting a lift with the boss. I didn't think much about what had happened when Renee had told me I didn't have to be fine nor really about what I'd gotten myself into for the next day. I just thought about how Nate had sounded okay about me calling and he'd said he'd try to get down here early tomorrow and that was the nicest thing he'd said to me in a while and it felt good.

At home, though, the good feeling leaked away. Not all at once, but drop by drop as I showered and changed and listened to the radio and drank some tea. Bella's things were still on the living room floor and so I avoided that room all together, but I knew they were there and it got so the thought of going in and picking them up made me shaky. But then I remembered there was going to be a bloody journalist here in the morning and maybe Nate, too, and so I couldn't leave it all out there like that and it'd be better to move it tonight or else I wouldn't get a bit of sleep just from thinking about it and so I steeled myself and marched in there.

I sat on the floor meaning to scoop the bits and pieces back into the bag and then throw the bag in the linen cupboard until I could decide what to do with it properly. I can't say what happened except that when I came to it was after three and my hair and nightie were stuck to my sweaty skin and I was shivering hard enough to shatter bone and all the stuff was laid out there just as it had been.

I didn't think, just did what I'd meant to two hours earlier, shoved it all back into the bag and then shoved the bag into the cupboard. I showered for the second time that night and then crawled into bed. I thought,
I am going mad
. I said it out loud. Then I said, ‘Talking to yourself, way to prove the point.' And that made Bella laugh and laugh.

Strathdee animal deaths unrelated to Bella Michaels

May Norman

17 April 2015

(Unpublished)

Strathdee police are appealing to the public to help them find the person responsible for at least three cases of animal cruelty. In the most recent case, a dead tabby cat with its muzzle taped shut was yesterday found behind Strathdee football oval's toilet block. Local vet Dr Melody Nicholson said that the cause of death was ‘asphyxia and strangulation'. Dr Nicholson also confirmed that both a cat found in the flower garden of the Memorial Park on 3 April and a dog found behind the post office on 12 April were killed in similar ways, although the dog also suffered a head injury.

‘These appear to be incidents of deliberate cruelty carried out on innocent, defenceless animals and we are taking them extremely seriously,' said a spokesman for the Strathdee police. All three animals are believed to have been strays, but police have issued a warning to all pet owners to keep their animals inside or safely secured until the perpetrator is found.

Police say there is no reason to believe that the animal deaths might be connected with the unsolved murder of Bella Michaels. ‘At the moment we are treating them as unrelated, but again we urge anyone with information about these crimes or any others to come forward and tell us what they know.'

Saturday, 18 April

On the page, the TV and from a distance, Chris looked nothing like her half-sister, but in person, up close, the resemblance was there. The smile Chris flashed when May complimented her cherry-red boots was the same as the one beaming out from every photo of Bella. The accompanying crinkles around the eyes were the same, too, though Chris's didn't smooth all the way out when the smile dissolved the way May imagined Bella's would have. Chris was a little taller than Bella, as far as May could tell, and as top-heavy as her younger sister was pear-shaped. When she said, ‘Come on in,' it was with the same broad country accent and deep, husky voice as that in the short nursing home video clip the TV news played over and over. That voice coming from sweet, young blonde Bella was a surprise, but out of Chris it was perfect.

‘Have a seat if you like.' Chris gestured to a round table covered in a rose-print cloth. In the centre of the table was a box of tissues, next to it a jug of water and two glasses.

‘Is it okay if I record our conversation?'

‘Ah, just wait a sec, okay? I'm not sure if I even want to do this. I mean, I'm not keen on –'

‘I know you've had some rotten experiences with the media, Chris, so I do understand that you're wary. But the recorder is there to help me get things right, which is what you want, yes? To have someone write the truth about Bella?'

Chris smiled again, but it was the smile of a barmaid about to tell a boozed-up patron he'd be served no more. ‘I don't want that at all. I don't want anything written about Bella.'

‘Why did you agree to meet with me then?'

She sighed. ‘Because I know you lot don't care what I want and that you'll write your bloody articles anyway.'

‘And you want to make sure –'

‘I want to remind you that there are real people who get hurt all over again every time one of you decides to dig your dirty little fingers into the wound.'

‘I know that, Chris. I really do. The last thing I want to do is cause you more pain.'

‘I know you don't want to. But you're willing to.'

May poured a glass of water, took a sip. ‘I am, yes, I suppose that's true. But it's also true it'd upset me greatly if that's how this turned out. I want to make sure Bella isn't forgotten, that the police, the public, the politicians, the bleeding-heart protestors and hard-arse law-and-order lobbyists – all of them – remember what happened to her, remember that whoever did it is wandering around free, breathing easier and easier with every day that goes by. That's what I want to do, Chris. If reminding the world of all that hurts you, then that's regrettable, but I still think it's worth doing.'

Chris tapped the tabletop with her soft, chewed-up fingertips. ‘I want to believe you, May.'

‘Why would I lie?'

‘Because I'm the golden get. I'm the source that'll make your reporting stand out from the others.'

‘Who are these others, Chris? Who's given you this idea that there'll be some kind of journalist showdown?'

She leant back and opened a drawer behind her, pulled out a short stack of business cards, splayed them on the table in front of May. ‘Six of them in the last two days. You lot have calendar alerts that go off if a terrible crime isn't solved within two weeks, hey? Now's the time to get the next of kin.'

‘No, but we do all understand that when a big new case hits the headlines, the last one is likely to slip from people's thoughts.'

Chris let out a sharp, vicious laugh. ‘You all think I'll spill my guts now, because I'm jealous of the attention given to poor bloody Kate Bronson.'

Kate Bronson, forty-one-year-old mother of five kids under ten, wife of a reasonably prominent businessman, grabbed while putting the garbage out after midnight, on the street outside her large, high-security home in a small, old-money suburb north of Sydney Harbour. Her body found a mere six hours later, lying right out on the footpath three streets away. Her photo and those of her small, stricken children and shell-shocked husband were everywhere the way Bella's had been a week earlier.

‘Of course not. But you know how these things go. The nation is grieving. Australia is outraged. Australia is scared. We'll never forget. Until the next photogenic victim comes along. Some of us aren't ready to move on and we know that the victim's family will be feeling the same way.' May picked up the business cards, flicked through them, recognising the names. One of them had recently written a bestseller about a jailed gang of pack rapists. ‘Have you talked to any of these people?'

‘I've told 'em all to bugger off if that counts as talking?'

‘You took their cards though.'

Chris shrugged one shoulder. ‘Easiest way to get rid of some people is to pretend you'll think about what they've said and get back to them.'

Yeah, but then you chuck the card in the bin right after, May thought. She slid one of the cards to the top of the pile. ‘Bet this bloke was hard to shake off.'

Chris squinted at the name. ‘Don't know if he was trying to fuck me as a way to get the interview or interview me as way to get me into bed.'

‘Hasn't changed then.'

Chris raised her eyebrows; May saw her opportunity.

‘Nine or ten years ago, when I was a cadet reporter, he was my mentor. Which meant, basically, sending me out to do the reporting, meeting me at the pub to take all my notes and write them up into a story under his by-line, and if the story came together quickly, screwing me in the back of his Camry before dropping the copy off at the office.'

A smile. Slight, but real. ‘We've all had a mentor like that, I reckon.'

‘God save twenty-year-old girls from slightly-older men bearing bullshit world-weariness and hard-ons for giving advice.'

‘God save us all. I've met more than my share these last weeks. Most of them coppers. Least I know to tell 'em to fuck off now. Doesn't make listening to their bullshit any easier, but.'

‘The cops give you advice? About what?'

Chris's face hardened. She shook her head. ‘I haven't agreed to an interview.'

‘Personal interest in the ways and means of mansplainers only.' May held up her hands. ‘No notebook, no tape recorder, see.'

‘Yeah. That grub tried to get in my pants, you're trying to become my BFF. Form a bond, make me like you, trust you.'

‘Chris, look, of course I want you to like me and trust me and speak to me on the record. But that doesn't mean I'm bullshitting you here. Not everything a reporter says is part of an angle they're working. I'm still a person.'

‘Nice angle.'

‘Fuck.'

Chris snorted. ‘The cops think I shouldn't talk to any reporters not screened by their media unit. They think I should do another press conference but only if I stick to their script. They think I should stop drinking so much, leave my job at the pub, incriminate my ex-husband by dobbing on him for every cross word he's ever said, and they especially think I shouldn't bring blokes back here for a tumble. When I don't take their advice – which is always, because to hell with those useless pricks – they tell me I'm making their jobs harder or hurting the case or putting myself at risk or, my favourite, making myself and therefore Bella
look bad
.'

‘Cops told you you're making Bella look bad? That's disgusting.'

Chris let out a deep sigh. ‘Thank you.'

They sat looking at the table while somewhere nearby a motorbike revved to life and a dog barked its distress.

‘If you talk to me – on the record and in detail – I can write the kind of in-depth profile piece that'll get national attention and of a different kind than the case has had so far. I think we can get it into one of the big women's mags.
Women's Weekly
would be my first pick. Large, totally engaged audience on its own, plus they have fantastic PR, which means it's likely to get picked up and reported on in some of the papers, too. You're a warm, charismatic woman, Chris, and middle Australia is going to be heartbroken for you. They'll be talking about you and Bella at work, at the school gates, at the hairdresser, over dinner. We'll make it so the whole nation is outraged by the fact the bastards haven't been caught.'

‘It's a good sales pitch, I'll give you that, but here's my problem.' Chris reached back to the drawer again, slammed a piece of paper onto the table.

May's stomach clenched as she recognised it as a print-out of her
AustraliaToday
story about Nate Cartwright's assault conviction.

‘Chris, listen, when someone close to a case –'

‘Do you have any idea what it might feel like to be grieving someone you love and have to read shit like this? Did it cross your mind how that'd be for him? Having the worst thing you've ever done dragged up in the middle of the worst pain you've ever felt?'

May could feel the heat rising from her chest, soon to humiliatingly flush her face. She breathed through it, focusing on her fingertips pressed into the tabletop. When she was reasonably confident her voice would behave, she met Chris's eyes. ‘Have you read any of my other stories about Bella?'

‘No.'

‘Okay, well, I think you should read how I've covered Bella's story in its entirety before you decide –'

‘Won't make a difference. I've read enough trashy crime writing in my time. I know what you're about. Get the housewives of Australia to gasp over my sister's gorgeous corpse, stir up the gossip about who might have killed her. If you can find a way to accuse the bloke the slutty sister's boning, all the better.'

A thrill surged through May. Slutty? Still sleeping with her ex? Gold.

‘I get it, Chris, I really do.' She concentrated on keeping her tone calm. ‘I get what you hate about these kinds of stories. But you need to think about what they can achieve.'

‘Big sales for the magazine, big payday for the writer.'

‘Maybe, but that's not what I'm in it for. I swear to you. I want to bring Bella to life for a broad audience, make those readers fall in love with her, think how she's just like them, could be their best friend, their sister, and then – bam – they get hit with the horror, have to go through the grief. Yes, it's a small, momentary grief, but it's there. They feel it: the loss, the outrage. They'll remember.' Chris's gaze hadn't shifted from May's face. She was breathing heavily, twisting a tissue into a mess of white splotches. May pushed on. ‘Next time they see some douchebag politician ranting about law and order because some rich prick got knocked on the head and robbed of his watch or hear some blowhard at the pub ranting about how feminism's gone too far and women have it easy, the women who've read my story will remember Bella, remember she's had no justice. They'll stand up, they won't let it go.'

May had started speaking in desperation but as the words came she realised she had once believed all of this about the power of a well-written story. The quaver in her voice told her that maybe she still did.

‘Good speech. I'll vote for you even if this cranky old sow won't.'

May's head jerked towards the doorway where a behemoth of a man in a tour company t-shirt and obscenely short shorts held a loaf of bread in one hand and a white paper bakery bag in the other.

‘My ex-husband likes to drop in and insult me from time to time.' Chris's expression was as hard as ever, but there was a softness in her voice May hadn't heard before.

‘Insult you
and
bring you teacake.' The man crossed the room in two huge strides, put down his packages, leant against the sink, looking right at May. ‘You're the reporter?'

May nodded.

‘You came to the house before. I told you to get lost.'

‘Yes, I –'

‘I read all your articles.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yep, every one I could find.' He turned, grabbed a glass platter from the draining rack and slid the teacake onto it. Without looking he opened the second drawer down to his right and grabbed a knife, then reached to his left and picked up three bread plates with one hand. ‘I liked 'em', he said, bringing the cake and plates over to the table. ‘Nearly all of them.' He winked at May and handed her a bread plate with a too-big piece of cake spilling over the sides.

‘Of course you did,' Chris said. ‘They're written for thickheads.'

‘Easy, you.' His huge hand alighted for a millisecond on Chris's head and then flew up to scratch his beard. ‘Nah, you're a good writer. Not that I'm an expert, but I do read a bit and I reckon you're good.'

May felt herself breathing more slowly, became aware that her cheeks were cooling. Chris, too, seemed calmer. Nate's presence had altered the energy of the room, made it feel relaxed, almost. This despite the deep thrum of shame she felt knowing this man had read the things she'd written about him.

‘Not an expert, that's an understatement.' Chris rolled her eyes. Her phone rang and she glanced down at it, then pressed her lips together. ‘Brandis,' she said to Nate. She answered while walking out of the room. A door clicked closed somewhere in the back of the house.

‘Look thanks for –'

‘Once Chris realised you were the bird who wrote that shit about me she wanted to cancel your visit. I had to talk her out of it, convince her to hear you out.'

‘Thank you.'

‘It's not for your sake, trust me.'

‘Okay. So why –'

‘You're right. We need to keep Bella in the public eye. Someone must know something and they must be getting all eaten up inside. Not the scum who did it. I don't expect they feel bad at all. But they live in the world, right? Someone they know suspects something. Someone saw or heard something weird. So we need to keep the pressure on for them. We need to make it so anyone who's trying to forget or ignore their suspicions about their mate or whatever is in hell whenever they turn on the TV or go to the supermarket. They need to be tortured.' A thin, mean note had crept into his voice and May saw that he noticed. He adjusted his posture. Gulped water from Chris's glass. ‘So, I'm going to try and get her to talk to you, right? But don't you go manipulating and screwing her over like you did to Julie Atkins.'