‘You think it’s bogus?’
The sky, full of wispy clouds, flashes past as we head back to the station.
‘No, I don’t. I think he’s genuine. Olivia Ryan may have been playing him, of course, so I want to see these test results to be sure, but I think he’s convinced.’
‘You think he’s in the clear?’
‘My gut says yes, but then he has no alibi and he does have motive. He was upset about her moving away. Maybe he wanted her to stay. Maybe the thought of losing her all over again was too much. Might have made him pretty desperate.’
I think of Nicholson’s face as he talked about his long-lost daughter, so close all this time yet so far away. ‘Yes. I guess it might.’
Chapter Forty-eight
Wednesday, 23 December, 10.04 am
Curtis Smythe eyes the mangy-looking boy at the Slurpee machine. He always watches the kids, especially the boys, or before he knows it they’ll be nicking this and that, and suddenly he’s clean out of stock. Some punk even got away with the cardboard display stand for the chips last summer. Curtis was out the front helping an old duck with her bags and the little prick walked straight out the back with it, an ‘up yours’ to the security camera included free of charge. The cops, when they finally came, were as useless as tits on a bull. They took a few photos and some measurements, but Curtis knew he’d never see that stand again. He keeps the back door locked now and has installed an extra camera. You just can’t be too careful. Still, Curtis is a businessman, has a shop to run, so he’s learned to keep an open mind and try to assume the best in people. One bloke’s dollar is as good as the next bloke’s. Sure, it takes all sorts, but Curtis figures that as long as they do right by him he doesn’t mind what they do in their own time.
It’s true what they say, though, that the hot weather brings out the crazies. Just two nights ago he was driving home and saw a woman vacuuming her car in the car park near the turn-off to Fyson, using one of those dinky little hand-held numbers that move the air around. The woman was all business with the vacuum, her long brown hair swinging around her face as she leaned over to do the floor. Maybe she’d borrowed the car and spilled something in the back seat, Curtis reasoned. Easy enough to do.
She should have come to his shop and had the car cleaned up properly, only take a few minutes. Curtis runs a better car mechanic service than the branded chains that are starting to pop up in the surrounding towns. He could have thrown in a cut and polish for a good price, spruced up the red paint really nice. Given her a bonus tank of fuel and a takeaway coffee and she’d have been all set. The plates on her car looked funny too; he could’ve sworn they were painted over.
But Curtis kept driving. There was no need for him to get involved. He had stopped asking questions a long time ago. It’s just like his granny used to say: the world is a better place when everyone minds their own goddamn business.
Curtis notices a gap on the shelf where a packet of batteries used to be. He clenches his fists and looks furiously around the store. No point calling the shit-for-brains cops again. No doubt they’re all caught up trying to sort out the mess with that poor lady teacher. From what the papers are saying they don’t seem to be getting anywhere at all.
Curtis eyes a young bloke with a rose tattoo growing out of his singlet top. The bloke jerks his chin up at Curtis in greeting before disappearing down the back of the shop, out of sight. Curtis straightens the newspapers on the front desk before following him. Rosalind Ryan smiles up at him from the front page. Curtis grimaces. Just clean bad luck something like that happening to a nice girl like her.
Chapter Forty-nine
Thursday, 24 December, 8.47 pm
‘I’ve missed you.’ Felix gently cups my face with his hands, kissing me.
I don’t believe you, my skin cells scream under his touch. Stop it, I tell myself. Don’t imagine problems. But his touch feels forced and I’m trying too hard and I can’t seem to relax. Stop thinking, I think. I need to get drunk, I want us to get drunk together and lie in each other’s arms until tomorrow, but it’s impossible because it’s Christmas Eve and I need to be home to see Ben. As it is, we’re missing the station Christmas party. It was easy to get out of; barely anyone expects parents with little kids to attend, and me even less so, seeing as last year I had the unfortunate luck of walking into the tearoom just as one of the junior officers was attempting to twist his cock into a knot. Plus, of course, everyone thinks that because of the kidnapping I’ll need to be with Ben.
Felix grabs my face again and I think with a start just how easy it would be to blow everything up. To grab my phone and snap a photo of us and send it to Scott, to Felix’s wife, to the entire station. I tuck my hands under the sheets just to make sure they can’t suddenly break away and do it before I can stop myself, to make sure that I don’t shatter our entire worlds with a few quick clicks and swipes.
It feels like every minute of today has been wrung out and squeezed like a lemon, that every last second was laboured. It is often like this when I know I am seeing Felix. My body prickles. I become aware of millimetres of skin that I have neglected or never noticed at all.
The first half of the day moved slowly: an unsatisfying check-in, then a tedious review of some security footage from a private residence near the school that ended up showing two kids snogging enthusiastically after the school play the night Rosalind died. Fortunately, there was some progress in the early afternoon when the hotline received a tip-off from thirty-eight-year-old Moira Foss, who lives in one of the houses that back onto Sonny Lake. Moira claims to have heard a couple arguing on the night that Rose was killed.
She was up late with her six-month-old daughter, who was teething, and stepped out onto the balcony to fetch some spit cloths that had been drying on the makeshift line, when she heard angry voices. It was around 10.30 pm, and she didn’t think much of it because couples were always fighting in the parkland under her balcony. The only thing that seemed odd after the fact was that the voices didn’t sound drunk. More like whispering or hissing, which was strange because the couples she and her husband usually hear are raging and loose, flowing with intoxicated abandon.
From what Moira can recall, this was different—more mature, more controlled. ‘It didn’t sound like kids, so I didn’t think much of it,’ she told us. ‘I could only really hear a woman’s voice—not what she was saying, just sort of low and angry words.’
Felix and I were perched on the edge of Moira’s couch amid piles of washing.