An Isolated Incident (20 page)

‘Julie – is that what she thinks?'

‘Well, yeah, because you did. But like I said, this isn't about me and the shit you've written before. You promise to do right by Bella and I'll help you get Chris on side.'

Chris came back into the room and Nate went to her. She murmured something too low for May to hear and then, loudly, ‘Look, something's come up so you need to go. But I'll think about what you've said, okay?'

‘Okay. That's great. And if you want to talk through anything, ask me any questions –'

‘Yeah. Leave your card or whatever on the table and we'll get back to you,' Nate said.

May took out a card, hesitated at the sight of all those other cards. ‘Um, so this is from the place I worked at before but I'm not working for them anymore. My mobile's the same though, so you can . . .'

They weren't listening. Chris was squeezing her phone like a stress ball and Nate was rubbing her arm. May was desperate to ask the question, fire guesses at them until she got a confirmation one way or the other, but she knew she was on shaky ground. Patience, respect, gentleness would be what got her in with these two. She propped her card up against the cake platter and thanked Chris for her time. Resisting the urge to crouch under the kitchen window and listen in was painful.

Detective Brandis slapped a photo on the table. ‘Familiar?'

‘No.' I kept looking even though I knew right away I'd never seen him. ‘Is he local?'

‘Yeah. Name's David Hunt. Ring any bells?'

I didn't want to seem too hasty. Didn't want to
be
too hasty. I thought hard, turning it over in my mind, thinking David Hunt. Dave. Davo. His mates'd call him The Hunter, Grunter, Munter, Munt, Cunt. ‘No,' I had to say. ‘Never heard of him.'

Brandis kept watching me. I waited. Looked some more at the photo. The upper half of a thin man in a dark green shirt with a pocket logo I couldn't make out. Mid- to late-thirties, sandy hair flopping down onto his forehead, eyes all creased up with laughter.

‘Is it him? Is this the –'

‘Chris, I need you to stay calm.'

‘I am.' I was. Sitting there, my hands in my lap, looking at that man. Looking.

‘Now, I need you to listen to me carefully. This man is a person of interest. We have him at the station right now and we're questioning him. We're searching his home and place of work, but we can't hold him if we don't come up with something concrete, you understand? So I need you to think really hard about whether you've seen him, heard Bella mention him, anything that could help us pin him down.'

It was hard to think clearly. I couldn't stop looking at his face. He had a good smile. I would've bent extra low over the bar for that smile. I'd have worked at getting a laugh from him. His hands weren't in shot. If they were, maybe I'd know. I'm such a sucker for a sweet smile, but hands never fool me. If I could see his hands I'd know what he was capable of.

‘Did Bella ever mention a delivery guy at work, maybe?'

I had a clear image of Bella at work, hauling herself up from the lunch table to answer the delivery bell. ‘No. She'd bitch sometimes about how deliveries always seemed to come when she was on her break and since the delivery door was at the back of the staff room, she'd end up spending half her break standing by the door, supervising the delivery, checking the bloke in and out. I know it sounds petty, but they only got half an hour for lunch and the job's so exhausting. She said she wanted to cry some days when she heard that bell go just as she'd sat down. Once she dropped tuna all over the delivery log. She thought she cleaned it off okay, and hung it back by the door. But the brine must've soaked into the clipboard underneath and her manager went mental about staff eating while working. Bella was ropeable that day. “Working while eating,
not
eating while working!” she kept saying. Only to me though. She never made a fuss or bitched at work. She wasn't like that.'

‘No. But she never spoke about any of the delivery men specifically?'

‘I don't think so. You should ask the others at the home, though, they –'

‘We've spoken to the other staff.'

‘And?'

‘You know I can't tell you everything about the investigation, Chris. You understand that, right?'

‘Yes. I just . . . Can you tell me why him? I mean, did someone see him? Was there, like, DNA or something?'

‘We've taken samples from him. They're being tested against the little we got from the scene. I can only tell you that we were led to him by a call from a member of the public.'

‘Someone called with information?'

‘Chris, hundreds of people have called and we've checked out every lead. This one seems promising.'

‘But –'

‘I can't tell you anything else right now, but if you think of anything, the tiniest thing that Bella might have said about a delivery man or someone called David or Dave, you call me right away, yeah?'

‘Okay. When will we –'

‘I'll be in touch, Chris. Soon as we have anything concrete, I'll be in touch. In the meantime, well, I know you won't go blabbing to the media, but best if you don't tell anyone at this point. Even that fella of yours. All quiet, yeah?'

I nodded. Watched him leave without getting up from the table. When I heard his engine starting up I popped over to Lisa's to use her computer. I typed in the man's name, which was obviously hundreds of other men's name, too. I spent over an hour clicking through. None of them were him, the man with the nice smile and unseen hands who might have raped and tortured and murdered my baby sister.

Sunday, 19 April

I told Nate they had a lead, but not that they'd given me a name, showed me a photo. If he knew, he wouldn't be able to help himself. As I couldn't.

It took me a while to figure out where to start. I've never needed to find anyone who wasn't in the White Pages or on Facebook. I wandered around the house, talking it through, aware that if anyone saw me they'd think I'd finally cracked it. I was drifting off to sleep when Bella finally chipped in with some advice.
Use what you've got
she told me and I said
What? Big tits and a broken heart?
and she said
People'll always help the busty and broken hearted, Chrissy, you know that.
Which is true.

First thing in the morning I
walked up to the nursing home and asked about collecting any of Bella's personal effects she'd left there. The girls were so incredibly lovely. They'd made a kind of shrine on top of the fridge in the staff room: Bella's staff ID, a pen with a bright pink troll doll on the end, a ‘Crazy Cat Lady in Training' coffee mug, a half-empty box of lemongrass and ginger teabags, lavender hand cream, lip balm, a copy of
The Fault in Our Stars
with a United Voice Aged Care Union bookmark poking out halfway through, a local newspaper photo of Bella dressed as a clown in front of a cluster of old people laughing so hard I worried that some of them might not have survived the photo shoot. All this placed carefully on her pale blue cardigan. So she wasn't wearing that when they took her. No wonder she was cold.

My plan had been to ask for a bit of privacy to make a phone call, but as it happened the moment overtook me and the darlings handed me tissues and told me to take as long as I needed gathering up her things. I was a bit of a mess to be honest, but I stayed focused on my task, went straight to the clipboard hanging by the delivery door. There were six pages, each with a date at the top and between five and ten entries down the page. Company name, a description of the delivery, time, delivery signature, staff signature. My eyes were all blurry so I took out my phone and snapped photos of each page. It was a trick Carrie taught me for when you wanted to finish an article you started in the checkout line without having to buy the magazine.

Phone back in my pocket I went to the fridge shrine and carefully placed each item in my bag. It felt wrong to be shoving them in with all my everyday shit, but for all my plotting I hadn't thought to bring anything special to carry her things in. I had thought to bring a framed photo of Bella at her TAFE graduation, grinning like a loon, holding up her Aged Care Certificate IV. I put it on top of the fridge and stood back. Right away I could see it getting knocked down every time someone slammed the door. One day someone wouldn't pause and prop it back up and it would lay face down gathering grime, becoming another invisible bit of staffroom clutter.

‘What a great photo!' Vicky bustled into the room, gave my arm a quick pat. ‘Is that for us to keep?'

‘If you want it, yeah, I thought . . .'

‘Of course we want it. God, look at that smile, will ya? But if you don't mind I might move it into the rec room? Put it on one of the bookshelves? That way the residents can see her as well.'

I nodded, so grateful and guilty and sad I could barely stand.

Tuesday, 21 April

M
ay spent two days on the internet documenting every rumour, supposition and slanderous accusation relating to Bella's death. Every couple of hours she'd stop to take a walk around the block, have a coffee and ciggie on the narrow verandah or stick her head in the shower with the cold water on full. By Monday night she had a long, cross-referenced, colour-coded spreadsheet and relentless nausea.

Tuesday she called Constable Matt Drey and asked him if he was free for dinner that night.

He said yes straight away, then, ‘Oh, but, listen, d'ya mean, like . . . 'Cause you know I can't talk to you about –'

‘If I wanted an interview I'd've asked for one. Dinner, you and me.'

‘Seriously?'

‘Seriously, but . . .'

‘Yeah?' His voice flat.

‘I do have some stuff I'd like to get your opinion on. Not police business, I swear. Just because you're a local and you've got such good insight into how everything works here.'

He was quiet for long enough she worried she'd lost him, but then he said, ‘Righto. Imperial at seven, okay?'

May forced herself to spend the entree (massive serving of garlic prawns and another of salt and pepper calamari ‘to share', he insisted) asking about his family and his footy team.

When the mains arrived she told him about her internet trawling, asked if he'd mind telling her off the record
of course
if there was anything worth following up. He shook his head like he'd never been so disappointed in his life, but she held his gaze, doing her best to appear irresistibly impish and after a bit he half-smiled and nodded for her to go ahead.

May pushed her untouched chicken parma aside, pulled out her notebook and pen. ‘ “My dog was strangled and hung in a tree only a few minutes from where this girl was killed.” '

Matt swatted the air. ‘Nothing like that's been reported. We had those three strays smothered, but no hangings.'

‘So it's bullshit?'

‘It's not been reported to the police is all I can say.'

May crossed it off her list. ‘Okay, how about this one. “I saw something that looked like a woman's thigh floating in Strathdee Creek. I told the police and when I went back it had gone.” '

‘What? A woman's thigh? How would you even be able to tell?'

May watched his face as he thought the question through. After a moment he flicked at the air again, shook his head. ‘Whatever. No body parts in the creek. Guaranteed.'

‘Right.' She put a line through the entry. ‘So, there are a few versions of this one, but the general gist is that Bella was seeing someone she shouldn't have.'

Matt speared a piece of carrot, swirled it through gravy, raised it to his mouth and, as he chewed, gave May the slightest nod.

‘Yes? That's a yes?'

He finished chewing, swallowed, nodded again. ‘What else you got?'

‘Okay. Ugh. This one's nasty, so don't get defensive okay? “I was raped not far from where she was found. I have told Strathdee police about the man who did it to me but they did not seem interested.” '

Matt looked hard at May while he finished chewing a mouthful of steak. She tried to keep her face neutral. ‘Listen,' he said. ‘I don't know what kind of crazy internet den you're crawling through but that's just straight-out lying. Someone comes in and reports a rape it's taken seriously.'

‘By you, of course, but what if someone else was on when –'

‘May.' He laid his knife and fork down, lifted his right hand and pointed at her. ‘I said I'd help you sort the crazy from the possible and I will, but I won't sit here and listen to you casting accusations on my colleagues.'

‘Okay. I'm sorry. If you say that it can't be true then I believe you.'

He nodded, held her gaze for a few seconds, then went back to his steak.

‘So what about –'

‘Enough now, I think.'

May flinched at his tone. She closed her notebook and slid it into her bag. After a couple of minutes of silence she attempted to start a conversation about the talent show playing on the overhead TVs but he put his cutlery down again and gave the table a small thump with his fist.

‘I saw what they done to her, May.'

‘I know.'

‘Nah, I don't reckon you do, because if you did you couldn't ask me questions like that, like – like – like inferring that we're not taking it seriously, that we're ignoring reports of rape and body parts.'

‘Matt, I'm really sorry. I can be insensitive sometimes, I know.'

He bit his lip. ‘I don't want to do this anymore. This internet rumour bullshit. It's disrespectful.'

‘Okay, of course.' May reached across, gave his hand a quick squeeze. ‘Again, I'm really sorry. Let me buy you another beer to make it up to you.'

‘No need for that. It's all good. Eat your chicken before it goes cold.'

May tried, but the feel of the flesh in her mouth was repulsive and it was all she could do not to gag.

Back at the hotel she went through the remaining list of rumours ruthlessly, crossing off any that failed the eye-roll test. These included that Bella was a virgin and had been killed in a satanic ritual requiring virgin sacrifice; that she was a devout Christian and been killed in a race hate attack perpetrated by Muslim youths and that she had been fond of hitchhiking and sometimes did it in one direction only to get out and return the same way just for kicks.

She couldn't get Matt's anger out of her mind. She knew all the Strathdee cops a little by now, couldn't imagine any of them turning away a woman alleging rape. But what did being able to imagine it matter? She couldn't imagine anyone doing most of the nightmare shit she'd been reading about these last few days and yet someone had, hadn't they? Even if the specific instances on the message boards and forums were bullshit, animal torture, human dismemberment and rape were real things that happened in the world.

May remembered reading how Ted Bundy insisted on walking his friend Ann Rule to her car each night after work. He worried about her going alone because he knew what men were capable of. Or more accurately, he knew what he was capable of and feared other men might be, too. So maybe it's the people who can imagine others committing atrocities that we need to be afraid of? They're not so much imagining as extrapolating.

But then she'd hardly known a man who hadn't at some point warned her of the need to be careful and always in a thick, low voice suggesting that they knew something about the ways of men that they hoped she'd never find out.

Had Craig ever done that? She was sure he hadn't. He'd never shown much concern at all about what she got up to when she was away from him. But she was the same – had to be or it wouldn't work. They spoke for hours about their childhoods and planned their shining future but the present reality outside of her bedroom was unspeakable.

Fuck
.
Why did everything come back to him?
She typed his name into her web browser, spent a few minutes desperately clicking through the links knowing from experience that he had no web presence, except a single line on the council website, but not being able to help herself from looking anyway. He'd never let her take any photos of him and that was something else to hate him for, because she was sure if she could just
see
his smile she'd feel better, be able to sleep.

Holding her breath, she typed his wife's name, found her Facebook page. It was mostly locked but a handful of profile pictures were public. May saw at a glance that he wasn't in any of them, but she scrolled through anyway,
hoping for comfort in the way of cellulite and wrinkles. She found those, plus chubby arms and grey roots and a smile which made her eyes almost disappear. Rage rocketed through May's body. She hit her pillow over and over and when that gave no relief punched herself in the leg until her eyes watered. If she was in Sydney she'd drive over to Craig's place and scream down his front door. She'd knock him to the ground and kick him until he couldn't get up and then she'd let Carmel do the same to her.

She jumped out of bed, put on tracksuit pants and sneakers, got as far as the carpark edge before Bella's body flashed up. She kicked the curb as hard as she could, swore at the pain shooting up her leg. She could hear a truck approaching from the highway exit and a second later its headlights cut the dark. She ran back inside, wrote a long rambling message telling Carmel she'd be better off without the treacherous prick who had phoned her, May, over a week ago while she, his wife, was at yoga but hadn't phoned back or even texted since then and how was it possible to love someone and miss them and also think they were utter scum who deserved to be kicked to death in the hallway of their own house?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck him
. She deleted the message without sending, grabbed her phone and
fuck him fuck him fuck him
blocked his number and deleted him from her contacts.

She
splashed her face with cold water, opened a beer and toasted herself in the mirror, then sat down to make a list of people to call for interviews the next day, starting with all of the male staff at Bella's work.