The Soulmate, page 14
We did the cocooning. Stayed home and kept our world small. We carried Asha around in a baby carrier. Gabe and I were the only ones who held her for months on end, the only ones to feed her and put her to bed. She needed to understand that we were her parents, so she would attach to us in a healthy, appropriate way.
For a year, I braced for Asha’s regression – the anger, the sadness, the behaviours my books told me to expect. They didn’t come. She attached, primarily to me but she liked Gabe too, from afar. She adored Freya, and Freya adored her back.
I also braced for my anger, my sadness. Asha was the product of my husband’s affair. Her very existence should have been a painful reminder, a slap in the face. Somehow, though, the opposite was true. Asha was a living breathing embodiment of the magic of Gabe. The beauty that came from the ugliness. She was the pay-off for all the pain. If I could have turned back the clock and undone things from our past, I might have – but never at the cost of Asha’s existence.
41
AMANDA
AFTER
It’s funny to watch Max let himself into the Portsea house. Usually, there’s a cleaning service that prepares the house for us. When we are planning a visit, I call the service to let them know. They arrive, open the curtains, fill the fridges with groceries, put the towels out and change the sheets on the bed. They put on the heater or air conditioner. They might even light a fire. Thus, this is Max’s expectation when he arrives there.
It is fun to watch him fumble for the light switches and then look around, perplexed by the cold dark space. Later, when he tries to warm up with a cup of tea, he’ll be surprised to find there is no milk in the fridge. He knows that someone has to put it there, and when he really thinks about it he’ll understand that, of course, no one has rung the service, but it will take a while for him to connect the dots. He is someone who has always had domestic things done for him.
He’s just set down his bag when his phone starts to ring. He retrieves it from his pocket, frowns at the screen. I can tell by his body language that he doesn’t recognise the number. Finally, he accepts the call, putting it on speaker.
‘Max Cameron.’
‘Mr Cameron? My name is Detective Sergeant Conroy and I –’
‘Detective,’ Max says, his shoulders relaxing. ‘Is this about my wife?’
A pause. ‘Not exactly. It’s a related matter. Your wife’s death has prompted another inquiry that I am hoping you can help us with.’
‘All right.’ Max’s voice is as cool as ever, but I can sense his wariness.
‘Our inquiry relates to a business relationship between NewZ and A.S. Holdings. According to our records, A.S. Holdings provided funds to NewZ for an acquisition.’
Max is quiet now. He knows better than to confirm or deny this. After several moments, he pulls out a dining chair and sits.
‘Mr Cameron, some information about this investor has come to light and we’d like to discuss it with you. We’d appreciate it if you could come in to the station for an interview.’
‘I’m out of town for a few days,’ Max says. ‘Is it urgent?’
For a moment, both men hang on the line.
‘Any time in the next week would be all right, I expect,’ Detective Conroy says.
‘Right then. I’ll have my lawyer call you and set something up,’ Max says. After a few seconds he adds, ‘So this is a financial investigation?’
‘Our inquiry is related to a financial investigation,’ the policeman replies.
‘And which department are you from?’
The detective pauses, perhaps for dramatic effect. ‘Homicide.’
42
AMANDA
BEFORE
After the men broke into the house, Max stayed home for the rest of the day. That night, we lay on the bed, facing each other. I could see Max’s face in the light that travelled in from the hallway. I wondered if we’d ever sleep in full darkness again. I understood the flawed logic of this, given that the men had visited the house in broad daylight, but in my experience fear was rarely logical.
Our security system had been reinstalled and two security guards patrolled the grounds. We were safe – at least that’s what Max seemed desperate for me to believe. I wondered if he believed it himself.
‘Who were those guys, Max? After what happened, I think you owe me that.’
I expected him to fob me off, but perhaps because of the authority in my voice he didn’t.
‘They work for a man called Arthur Spriggs. Arthur is a business associate of mine. I met him through an acquaintance when I was looking for investors. Suffice to say, Arthur’s business endeavours weren’t entirely above board, which was why he was so motivated to find legal ways to invest his money.’
‘To clean it, you mean? Money laundering?’
Max nodded. ‘It was ill-advised, and I knew that. But at the time I was desperate. Stupidly, I thought the relationship would end when I had enough money to pay him back. But Arthur had found the partnership fruitful and he wanted it to continue.’
I remembered the phone call I’d overheard, Max trying to return money. He’d seemed so confident.
‘So those men today . . .’
‘Were Arthur’s way of showing me that I couldn’t just call off our arrangement when it suited me.’ He exhaled loudly.
‘So what are you going to do?’
He put a hand on my cheek and looked at me. ‘I’m going to take care of it.’
There was a hardness to Max after that. It wasn’t always evident. In public, he appeared to be the same likeable man he always was. He championed his charity. His business grew and thrived. But there was something harsh and implacable about him. He wasn’t going to be hurt again.
43
PIPPA
NOW
Detective Senior Constable Tamil is not alone. She is accompanied by another police officer, a middle-aged man named Conroy. Tamil introduces him, but my brain is too scrambled to take in the details. Instead, Gabe and I wrap towels around the girls, which they immediately start flapping about like wings, with little regard for their dignity.
‘Come in,’ I say to the detectives, at the same time as Asha says, ‘Why aren’t you wearing a police hat?’
‘I’m a detective,’ Tamil says. She has the polite but baffled tone of someone who likes children but doesn’t have any herself. ‘Detectives don’t wear uniforms. But I do have a badge. Would you like to see?’
She gets out her badge and Freya and Asha look at it for a split-second before losing interest.
‘Why aren’t you driving a police car?’ Asha asks, glancing through the window at the unmarked car in the driveway. Her towel is now around her head.
‘I do drive a police car,’ Tamil says. ‘But it’s not a blue-and-white one. Mine is a police car for detectives.’
‘Does it have a siren?’
‘Yep. But it’s only for emergencies.’ Tamil meets my gaze over the top of the girls’ heads. ‘Sorry to take you by surprise. We were down this way today and we thought we’d try to cover off a few last details with you, Gabe, before we finalise the suicide from the other night. If you have some time now, it will save us another trip.’
‘Of course,’ Gabe says, charming as ever. ‘Come on in.’
We file down the hall into the living room. Asha is now holding Tamil’s hand.
My mind is going a million miles an hour. First, I wonder if Detective Conroy could have been the man asking Mr Hegarty about us, but I quickly discount it. This man is a police officer. He would know exactly where we lived. Next, I think about the wording Tamil just used. Finalise the suicide, she’d said. Surely, she wouldn’t have said that if new evidence or information had come to light.
‘Why don’t you have a seat?’ I say. ‘Can I offer you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water?’
‘We’re fine,’ Tamil says, as they move towards the sofa.
The girls are bouncing around, thrilled by the unexpected visit. I know my role is to remove them, but I can’t bring myself to leave.
‘Girls,’ I say, ‘we need to speak to the police. If you and Freya go and put on your pyjamas, you can have a Tim Tam each from the pantry.’
The girls scamper off. Gabe and Tamil sit on the couch and I sit in an armchair. Conroy continues standing. He wanders over to the back sliding doors and looks out at the cliff. ‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ he says. ‘What is it you do for work?’
‘I’m a lawyer,’ I say, even though he’s looking at Gabe. ‘Wills and estates. Gabe looks after the girls.’
‘Awesome.’ He is still looking at Gabe. ‘I did that for a while when my kids were little. My youngest is a teenager now. It was pretty unusual to be a stay-at-home dad back then. How long have you been doing it?’
‘Just over a year.’
‘Bet your daughters love it.’ Conroy sits in the armchair opposite me, crossing his legs. ‘What did you do before that?’
Conroy sounds casual, friendly, and yet I sense an undertone that tells me this is more than friendly conversation.
‘I worked in investor relations,’ Gabe says. ‘Back in Melbourne.’
‘Investor relations.’ Detective Conroy smiles. ‘I’m not from the corporate world. What does that mean exactly?’
‘Well,’ Gabe says, ‘in a nutshell, I found people to give us money when we were looking to expand our business.’
‘“Our business”? Which business was that?’
Gabe hesitates. Act natural, Gabe, I urge silently. Act natural. At the same time, Freya appears with her pyjama top stuck around her head. Her timing couldn’t be more perfect.
‘I’m stuck!’ she cries.
I let Gabe rescue her, taking the opportunity to change the subject to the weather.
Once Freya is unstuck, the girls run to the kitchen to get their Tim Tam and Gabe returns to the sofa. Tamil gets out her notebook and, thankfully, the questioning takes a different turn. ‘Okay, I’m sorry to keep coming back to this but we need to go over your statement again.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Standard procedure,’ Tamil says. ‘Sometimes people remember things differently after a few days, when the adrenaline has settled.’
‘But it was a suicide.’
‘Even so, we are required to investigate all deaths with an open mind before we can rule it a suicide. So, we need to dot our i’s and cross our t’s.’
I wonder if she’s heard from Max.
‘Fine,’ Gabe says. ‘Go ahead.’
‘All right. Let’s go over what happened again. From the start.’
Gabe goes over the story again, with only a little prompting from Tamil. Conroy doesn’t speak at all. I wait for one of them to drop the bombshell – We know that you worked for Max Cameron – but neither of them mentions it.
‘All right,’ Tamil says, after Gabe has finished. ‘That’s it.’
Gabe and I exchange a glance. That’s it? I want to feel relieved – and I do a little – but the feeling of dread remains lodged inside me.
Tamil and her colleague rise to their feet. ‘Oh. Just one more thing.’
And there it is. The reason for the dread.
I wonder if it gives her a perverse sort of pleasure to lull someone into a false sense of security, get them all comfortable and relaxed, and then stick the knife in. I suppose it would be quite satisfying. When they did this in Line of Duty, I always gave a fist pump. Not today.
‘The victim’s husband told us that she kept a USB on her keyring,’ Tamil says. ‘It was silver and her name was engraved on it. But the USB wasn’t on the keyring when it was returned to him.’ She’s looking at her notebook as she reads the description of the USB. Then she looks up. ‘Do you know anything about it?’
I feel blood pulsing in my face, my arms, my body. I think I might faint.
‘No,’ Gabe says. ‘I didn’t see any USB. But then, I didn’t see her keyring either.’
‘I thought it was a long shot, but we had to check. All right, we’ll leave you to get on with your evening.’
Tamil returns her notebook to her pocket, and we file back down the hall. As I reach for the door to let them out, the girls take their opportunity to pounce.
‘Did my mummy or daddy do something wrong?’ Asha asks.
Tamil chuckles. ‘No. I’m just asking them about something that your daddy saw.’
‘The lady at the cliff?’
The detective lifts her gaze to meet mine. ‘That’s right.’
‘She didn’t jump,’ Asha says seriously. ‘Grandma said she jumped, but it was an accident. She fell.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. My daddy said so. That’s why we should never go too close to the edge. Because you can fall.’
It is entirely explainable, of course. Out of the mouths of babes. What’s less explainable is Gabe’s facial expression when Tamil looks up at him. He is horrified. Pale. Your classic deer in the headlights. He is the very image of someone who has just been caught in a lie.
44
AMANDA
BEFORE
After those men broke into the house, our security increased dramatically. Cameras, alarms, keypads. I had a panic button in every room, and another to always carry on my person. Max’s office was similarly set up with cameras and alarms. Everything, Max told me, was state-of-the-art.
There was also a full-time personal security guard stationed at the house around the clock, an ex-military officer called Baz. I’d been terrified of the two men who’d come to the house that day, but Baz was something else. He was the tallest man I’d ever seen, built like a rugby player, with one of those heads that flowed straight into his neck. Each of his limbs was wider than my torso and pulsing with veins. He had a mean face, huge, mangled knuckles and a snake tattoo that crept out of the collar of his shirt. Before Baz, I hadn’t known that you could feel both safe and petrified at the same time. But after a while, I started to get used to it. This level of security became our new normal.
*
‘It’s done,’ Max said, six months after the break-in. We were at home, in the lounge room. Max had been working on his computer, while I was editing some photographs I’d taken at the opening of the Ai Weiwei exhibit at the art gallery. We were sharing a bowl of Pringles.
I looked up from my laptop. ‘What’s done?’
‘My business with Arthur Spriggs.’
He closed the lid of his own computer with a thud of finality. It was the same computer he’d been working on that day in the study, the one he kept locked in the safe.
‘What do you mean it’s done? What did you do?’
‘The less you know . . .’
‘No way, Max,’ I said. ‘No more of that. I want to know. I deserve to know.’
A flash of something crossed Max’s face. I couldn’t quite place it, but it gave me a sick feeling.
‘I asked Baz to return Arthur’s money. In person.’
‘Baz went to see Arthur Spriggs?’
There was a note of disbelief in my voice. I understood on some level; Baz was intimidating as hell. But I would have thought someone like Arthur would have been used to that. I was shocked that all it would take was a visit from Baz to end this nightmare.
‘No. He didn’t see Arthur.’
Suddenly it made sense. Arthur hadn’t sent his men to Max; that wouldn’t have had the desired effect. He had to be cleverer than that. And so, apparently, did Max.
‘He left it with Arthur’s wife? Girlfriend?’
Max hesitated. There it was again – that flash. ‘He left it with Arthur’s daughter.’
A sick feeling came over me. ‘How old is his daughter, Max?’
A short pause. ‘I understand that she is two or three years old.’
Baz, I discovered later, had scaled Arthur’s fence and handed the little girl an envelope of cash while she played in the backyard. Her mother had ducked inside, so he waited for her to return before he left. It was important, Max said, that she saw Baz and understood what they were up against.
No harm came to the little girl, Max was clear about that, and I believed him. Then again, I’d also believed him when he said he’d never cheat on me. Goes to show how dangerous it can be, thinking that you know someone.
45
PIPPA
NOW
The Pantry is bustling. It’s impressive for a weekday. Certainly, it wouldn’t have been an unfamiliar sight in the middle of summer, but down here many cafes and restaurants rely on the weekend and school holiday trade from Melbourne.
I am sitting at a back table by the window, in front of a sandwich I didn’t order but that I’m enjoying desperately. I haven’t eaten a proper meal in days and there’s something calming about a full stomach. It doesn’t entirely relieve my anxiety, but it helps a bit.
‘If they knew about the connection between Max and me, they would have said so.’ That’s what Gabe said to me last night, after the police had left. ‘It just felt like they did because we’re nervous. You don’t have to worry.’
Easy to say.
This morning, when Gabe had taken the girls off to preschool, he’d been an entirely different man from the nervous, shaken one of the evening before. He’d decided that the police visit was a good thing, and that the most likely scenario was that they would have closed the case by the end of the day, ruling it a suicide. Even if Max had been here in Portsea, Gabe said, he’d have left by now. He was probably back in Melbourne, planning the funeral. Gabe seemed so confident. I envied him.
‘Be right with you,’ Dev says as he sails past, holding a couple of bowls of mussels.
I don’t often do wills face to face. I’ve never done one in a cafe while the client serves the lunch rush. But there’s something about the unorthodox arrangement that I like. He has two staff holding down the fort – one in the kitchen and one serving – but when it gets busy he chips in to help.
