After a few moments, a fresh-faced girl all of thirteen appears to take our orders. Rodney asks for a milkshake, barely looking at her. I glance at the wine menu but settle for a milkshake too.
After she disappears into the kitchen, I duck my head, trying to catch his eye. ‘Are you okay, Rodney? Why did you want to see me?’
He twists his hands. ‘I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you.’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
He looks at the fan, the door. His mind seems to be flitting around, almost like he’s on something.
‘Rodney?’
‘I just don’t have anyone to talk to. I like talking to you.’
Warmth spreads in my chest before I catch myself. Careful, I think. ‘I like talking to you too,’ I say.
‘I guess I just feel alone now. You know, doing the play again, it’s like I’m glad we’re doing it but it’s so weird that she’s not there.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘I don’t think that anyone else really cares! They’re all talking about next year and leaving Smithson and I just can’t.’
‘You really loved her, didn’t you, Rodney?’
The tendons in his jaw work hard. He looks at me with wounded eyes. ‘She just understood me. She got me.’
I remember that Rodney turns eighteen in two weeks. If I collect his DNA now and file it in mid-January I won’t have to get Donna Mason’s permission. I can also decide whether I want to submit it at all.
‘You know, Rodney,’ I say kindly, ‘there’s a lot of talk about you, people saying things about the two of you. I could put a lot of it to rest with a DNA test.’
‘A DNA test?’ he repeats.
‘Yes.’ I stir the milky bubbles with my straw. ‘There’s some evidence that we collected and if we could just get your DNA we could possibly remove you from the investigation.’
He puffs out his cheeks. ‘Okay,’ he says, after a minute. ‘How long does it take?’
‘Collecting your DNA is instant. We can do it right now; I have a kit in my bag. You just need to swab your mouth. The test will take a few weeks but I’m sure it will all be fine.’
‘Okay. I’ll do it.’ His voice is flat and I wonder what he is thinking.
He doesn’t ask what evidence I’m referring to. I don’t mention the baby. Even if it was his, he may not know anything about it. I think about the baby I lost. It would have been about eight weeks along by now. The gravity of the decision I managed to dodge overwhelms me, and I paste on a smile and hand Rodney the DNA kit.
‘Just push that along the inside of your cheek and that’s it.’
Rodney takes the kit from me and removes the swab, running it along the wall of his mouth before placing it back into the bag.
‘Thanks, Rodney,’ I say, taking it from him, and I swear I can see all of his tiny cells scrambling around on its tip, holding all the answers.
Chapter Sixty-three
then
I folded the letter in half and placed it in the envelope. I looked at his name, written across the front like it should be sung. I slipped the envelope in the front page of my notebook and then put it into my bag. I only had an hour until daylight.
I cycled over to Jacob’s house. The sparse streetlights lit my way, the ground steamed from the recent rain. I counted on Jacob being up first. He often roamed around the house till late, watching TV, before waking early. For a moment I panicked, thinking that perhaps he was staying at her house, but Donna would never let him do that, and I could see his bike propped next to the front door, his sneakers parallel with Rodney’s.
I leaned my bike on the fence beside the letterbox, got the envelope out of my bag and walked towards the house. I stared at myself in the glass of the windows, which had turned to mirrors in the early-morning light.
Before I could have second thoughts, I slid the envelope underneath the front door.
Chapter Sixty-four
Wednesday, 30 December, 5.18 pm
I pick Ben up early from my dad’s. He wraps his small arms around my neck as I kiss Dad goodbye then bundle him into the car. We drive. I’m not sure where we’re going but I don’t feel like going home. Scott has agreed to help one of the neighbours rebuild a fence this afternoon and even though we haven’t discussed Ben returning to Cloud Hill yet, instinctively it doesn’t feel like an option right now. Maybe it never will be. Everything seems temporary at the moment.
I turn corners at random, following the curves of the road. The idea of stopping, of having to do anything beyond aimless driving, seems impossible.
Ben kicks the back of my seat.
‘Hey, sweetheart, stop that, come on.’
‘Want toast.’
‘You can’t have toast, baby. I can’t cook toast in the car.’
Ben replies with a swift kick to the door.
‘Ben, please. Look, we’ll stop and get some fruit. I know a place just up ahead.’
We whip past patchwork paddocks. The sun has dipped towards the earth, shooting sideways like a laser beam. Melancholy cows watch us, their mournful stares providing a distraction for Ben, who mercifully stops kicking the seat. I pull into the roadside stall and buy a small box of strawberries and a bag of blueberries.
‘Berries!’ he says with a hand out.
‘Hang on, hang on. We’ll just go up the road a bit.’
I park in the rest stop under the shade of a giant gum. A few chairs and tables pepper the edge of the car park but I coax Ben to an oasis of faded green at the tip of the curve where the mountain juts out and you can stare forever at the infinite fields. The sky is the sea, the land its sandy base. It’s beautiful. I haven’t thought to come here for years. Smithson is surrounded by pockets of nature’s best. Valleys pool with emerald green moss, ferns carry the faces of exotic tigers, flowers the colour of rare gems. The air is cleaner up here: we’re above the haze that hugs the town, above all the judgment that gets stuck in my lungs and pulls me down. I pan evenly across the outlook, catching myself as I complete my scan. It’s not like I’m going to be able to spot the killer from up here. Looking down at Smithson like this does make it seem more possible though. It’s smaller. More manageable. I see the large square of the Carling plant, the tiny dots of houses, the sketchy roads. Sonny Lake, the shot tower. Catching the killer shouldn’t be so hard, but somehow once I’m back among the Lego-like rows of houses and familiar shops, everything is closer and yet further away. Rodney’s down there somewhere, I think. I wonder what he’s doing. Rehearsing for the play? Or is he at the lake, staring out at the water, missing Rose? I move my eyes back to Ben, who is chomping contentedly on his blueberries, staring at the view, a wine-coloured rim quickly forming around his lips.
‘You had a good Christmas, Ben?’
He nods, still eating.
‘That’s good.’ I shift over next to him in the shade and kick off my shoes and socks. I pick fluff from between my toes. Move them back and forth in a slow wave before pushing them into the dry earth.
‘Hey, Ben, maybe we’ll go on a holiday soon. Would you like that?’
He bobs his head up and down. ‘Peppa Pig goes on holidays.’
‘Cool,’ I say. ‘Well, I think it would be nice to go on a holiday.’