The Silent Inheritance (12 page)

Sarah held her. Marni’s tears always got her own flowing, but not tonight. She stood at the table, eggs and toast forgotten,
Deal or No Deal
forgotten, brushing her girl’s long wild hair back from her face with her left hand. Her right hand held that ticket.

She didn’t look at it. She didn’t look at Marni’s hair, but beyond it, beyond the grey paling fence, beyond the sky, now black with the promised storm Melbourne had been waiting for all day. She wasn’t thinking storms. She was thinking Perth, and Jillian Jones, and newspapers – and attempting to divide six into twenty-eight.

Bob had mentioned that there had been six winners and that neither he nor his mother had picked one number.

Six wouldn’t divide into twenty-eight, not cleanly.

Through that northern window she saw the first flash of lightning. Perhaps she heard the clap of thunder. She felt it through her girl. Lived through her girl, existed because of her girl, who’d stopped crying to watch the approaching storm.

They were still standing, arms around each other, close, just the two of them, only ever two, watching the window when the rain came and came hard, slanting down, attempting to get through the glass.

Three sixes are eighteen, Sarah thought. Four sixes are twenty-four. Five sixes are thirty. Five was too much, but not much too much.

Six into twenty-eight equals four and four over. Borrow a zero from the black clouds, but six won’t go into forty either, not cleanly. Six sixes are thirty-six, and still four over. Borrow another zero. Borrow as many zeros as you liked from those clouds and you still couldn’t get rid of the remaining four.

Four million – and a row of never-ending sixes.

The devil’s number, 666.

And outside their granny flat, the devil ripped Sarah’s little world apart with lightning, shook her safe little world with thunder while on the old stove four eggs boiled dry in their saucepan.

They’d never know if the contestant on
Deal or No Deal
had taken the bank’s last offer or if he’d opened the wrong case and lost the lot.
Deal
was over and the news was on.

Sarah’s name might be on it tomorrow, or had she ticked the anonymous box when she’d registered? Too long ago. Couldn’t remember.

Marni smelled the roasting eggshell. She turned off the hotplate and ran cold water into the saucepan. It filled the room with steam. She closed down the computer, turned the television off, then the power board. Lightning storms could damage electrical appliances.

S
heltered from the sound of rain by the floor above, from the lighting by heavy, black-out drapes, perhaps the final clap of thunder woke Barbara. Still heavy with the residue of drugged sleep, for an instant she was unaware in which bed she lay. Felt for him beside her. Felt only emptiness.

And could smell him. She didn’t know if it was midnight or dawn, only that she had to wash his smell off, then pack her bags and go before he returned from his country jaunt.

Her mobile told her the time. She’d slept for almost four hours. Plenty of time. She’d be out of this place at daybreak and home in Sydney before nightfall.

‘Danni!’

No reply.

That kid lived in headphones. She looked at the stairs and sighed. ‘Damn you, Danni,’ she yelled. ‘If you make me go up there looking for you, you’ll be sorry.’

She went up, and the study door was open. Danni wasn’t at her computer. It wasn’t turned on. Her bedroom door was open. She expected to see her on her bed, texting. Not there, not in her bathroom either. That little bitch hadn’t come home.

She wouldn’t have been expecting Barbara before ten, not on a Friday night. She’d be with Samantha and the boys who hung around that overdeveloped little slut of a girl, and downstairs she went to her mobile.

Get yourself home, we’re packing up
, she texted, then waited, expecting a fast reply. Danni wanted to move back to Sydney. No reply, so she sent another.

What the hell do you think you’re doing staying out so late? I need you to pack up your room. We’re going home in the morning.

She plugged her mobile into the charger on her way out to the garage to get the cases. Danni’s schoolbag wasn’t on the washing machine, which meant she hadn’t been home to change out of her uniform.

Dog barking outside. The sitting room window offered a view of the paved communal drive, where that mongrel was yapping his brains out. Its owners were out there, the male and the cripple in the wheelchair, and cripple or not, on a block like this where too many houses were crammed up against each other, residents shouldn’t have been allowed to have dogs.

She closed the drapes, loving the way they slid together at the pull of a cord, the way they met without leaving a gap. Whoever had owned this house before David must have spent a fortune on drapes. She loved the furniture they’d bought, but she’d show him that he couldn’t buy her as his Friday night fool.

She took two cases into her bedroom, left one near the stairs for Danni, then sent a third text.

Answer me now!

Waited for a reply, and when it didn’t come, she picked up her landline phone. Samantha’s home number was in its memory. She found it, hit
talk
, then stood, foot tapping, until a voice came on the line.

Barbara didn’t identify herself. ‘Is Danni there?’ she demanded.

‘I haven’t seen her today, Barb.’

Bloody Barb. She loathed the abbreviation of her name. ‘Is Samantha home?’

‘She usually comes home to eat.’ Mrs Deadbeat Smith laughed. Barbara had never met her and didn’t want to. She cut the connection, cursed that girl and her mother, and David Crow, and dialled Danni’s mobile number.

In all, Barbara sent five texts and left two voicemail messages, which meant Danni’s battery was flat, or she’d turned her mobile off, and, knowing her attitude lately, it was probably the latter. She’d come home to sleep, so Barbara went to her room and started packing.

*

Sarah and Marni fed Mrs Vaughn late that night, and only after she’d belted on her laundry window to let them know she hadn’t been fed. Cooked her potato and frozen beans in the microwave. Reheated a container of frozen stew, then Marni ran through the rain to deliver the meal.

They didn’t eat until eight thirty, when they sat down to ultra-hard-boiled egg and lettuce sandwiches.

From time to time they looked at each other, or at Marni’s numbers, written now on scribble paper with the 4,666,666. They didn’t believe in them, not yet, so they ate their sandwiches, drank their tea and struggled to find a word worth speaking.

The winning ticket, beneath the clock on their bedside chest of drawers since Sunday, was now zipped safe into Sarah’s purse, and the purse zipped safe in an inner pocket of the tapestry bag, and the bag not in its usual place, on the floor, in the corner. It hung tonight within Marni’s reach, over the back of her chair, so she could touch it, convince herself that it was there, that tonight was real.

‘Do we need to phone them, Mum?’

‘They know,’ Sarah said.

‘I could go on that school camp if it’s not too late to pay,’ Marni said. ‘You can buy your car.’

‘Licence first,’ Sarah said.

‘I thought that winners got phone calls from TattsLotto.’

‘I got no phone when I register, no computer.’

‘They might have sent someone around to tell us, and Mrs Vaughn hunted them away – or they gave her our money. Can I ask her if someone came?’

‘No.’

‘We can get two iPhones, like Bob’s. We can fly to Disneyland when you get your holidays.’

‘No passport,’ Sarah said.

‘How long does it take to get one?’

‘More than April. Stop, Marni. It … making me feel sick.’

‘Because you can have everything you ever wanted?’

‘Because …’

‘Imagine David Crow’s face when you tell him you’re leaving.’

‘We tell no one,’ Sarah said.

‘The lotto people might.’

‘I know when I write Sarah Carter I will tick anonymous.’

‘I can tell Maria. She was with me when I bought it, Mum.’

‘No one, Marni.’

‘You’re scared someone will kidnap me?’

‘Many bad people are out there.’

*

At eight fifty Barbara again dialled the Smiths’ number. Samantha took the call.

‘Who was Danni with when you left her?’

‘No one. She got mad about something and walked off by herself.’

‘What time?’

‘About an hour after we got there.’

‘What time, Samantha!’

‘Half past fourish.’

‘It’s almost nine o’clock and she hasn’t been home. Do you know if she’s been in contact with her father?’

‘I dunno.’

‘I need to know, Samantha! She’s missing.’

There was muttering at the other end of the line, then Mrs Smith took the phone.

‘Sam said that Danni texts her father all the time, that he sent her a text from his boat today at lunchtime.’

‘He’s not allowed to have contact with her!’

‘Hang on a minute, Barb. Sam’s checking around their friends.’

Barbara hung on. She heard the mobile beeps as replies came back fast to Samantha’s mobile.

‘No one has seen her,’ Mrs Smith reported. ‘She hasn’t replied to Sam.’

‘Her father’s got her,’ Barbara said. She cut the connection and dialled triple zero.

It took time to be put through to the police, and when she got through, the male voice on the line wasn’t interested.

‘He’s taken her before. She was in contact with him at lunchtime,’ Barbara said.

The constable followed procedure. He asked for Martin Lane’s details. Barbara gave him the only address she knew, a nine-month-old Sydney address and phone number. She gave him Danni’s mobile number, and told him she wasn’t answering her phone.

Non-custodial parents who don’t agree with the court’s ruling too often made their own rules. The constable didn’t say this, not in so many words.

‘In most cases there is a reason why the partner is late in returning the child,’ he said. ‘In most cases there’s no cause for concern, Mrs Lane.’

‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? Her father has supervised visitation rights only. He tried to smuggle her out of the country on his brother’s yacht eighteen months ago.’

‘Have you contacted the father—?’

Barbara hung up and dialled David’s mobile, no longer caring if she hated him or not. She needed him, or needed someone who’d listen. Danni was missing.

His voicemail replied. She left a message, then considered phoning her father.

If this had happened in Sydney, her father would have taken control and had that constable saluting him. Let him take control, she thought. Something had to be done. If Martin had picked Danni up at four thirty, they had a four-hour start. If his brother was down here with his boat, they could already be miles out to sea.

She phoned the exchange. ‘Connect me to the Nunawading police station,’ she said. It was her nearest police station.

A female answered. Barbara told her story again, told of Danni’s father’s supervised visitation. She spoke of his brother’s yacht, and how Martin and his brother had almost smuggled Danni out of the country.

Men always won. In the end, it was the man who got what he wanted. She used to think she was using them, but each time, it was she who ended up the one being used.

The constable asked about Danni’s contacts. Barbara told her she’d checked them last week, that Martin’s name wasn’t amongst them.

‘Do you have your phone account handy, Mrs Lane?’

‘In my computer.’

‘It will show the numbers your daughter has been in contact with.’

And why hadn’t she thought to check that? Should have. Too much David on her mind. Too much of his circus, his wife, his Mrs Know-it-all Carter on her mind.

The constable remained on the line while Barbara ran upstairs, turned on her computer and printed off her last Telstra account.

‘You said that Danni is twelve, Mrs Lane?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you give me a general description?’

‘She’s finely built, undeveloped, waist-length platinum-blonde hair, and would be wearing a Burwood Heights High School uniform.’

*

While Barbara clung to the lifeline of that calm female voice, Ross Hunter’s mobile rang.

‘Who?’ he said.

‘We’ve got a blonde-headed twelve-year-old girl who didn’t come home from school, Sarge. Nunawading just called it through. A Danielle Lane, last seen at Forest Hill Chase at around four thirty this afternoon.’

‘Him?’

‘Her mother is dead certain the ex-husband has got her, but it’s Friday, and you said he wouldn’t wait long.’

‘Half past four?’ Ross said. ‘That’s four and a half hours ago!’

‘Her mother works in the city. She believed her daughter was with a girlfriend. Five minutes ago she found out she wasn’t …’

*

The police were on their way. Barbara phoned her father, briefly, too briefly for him to complete his sentence. ‘You take my granddaughter down …’

Down there and lose her …

He’d make it Barbara’s fault. He loved Danni, loved her more than he loved his own daughter. He’d paid Barbara’s airfare to America so she could bring his granddaughter home the first time Martin ran off with her, but when she’d finally brought her home eight years later and filed for a divorce, he’d taken Martin’s side.

‘You’re not sixteen, my girl,’ he’d said. ‘You’re a married woman and a mother, so start behaving like one.’

She picked up the computer printout to stare at the phone numbers she’d circled. There were five numbers Danni had contacted regularly. One would be Martin’s so she picked out a text and sent it to all five.

Danni missing. Have you seen her? Please reply. Barbara Lane

Replies woke up her phone. One sounded like him.

Not since you took her to Melbourne

Almost heard his accent in text, his accusation. He’d accused her outside the court that day. ‘You rip those who get too close to you to shreds. You keep your barbs out of Danni or I’ll make you sorry you were born.’