Judgement Day, page 28
When he remained close-lipped, she sighed. ‘You know how to clean up a crime scene, of course, after all those years doing criminal law. You were meticulous. Then afterwards, in the early days of the investigation, you kept your ears open, waiting to hear what we were thinking, who we were suspicious of. My guess is initially you thought to frame Michael O’Neil – you didn’t know he had a watertight alibi early on. Then you saw an opportunity in Brian Shanahan. You knew about the security breach last year, which was perfect.
‘And then Harriet made a run for it. She was fearful of us discovering – you discovering – what the money paid to the law firm was for. But ironically her disappearance helped you, in one way; it created an opportunity for you to point us back to Shanahan. We’ve confirmed with Angela that the eyelash was part of one of his court files, it was an exhibit. An exhibit that weirdly went missing just recently. He did love sending strange things to his exes, one of whom got a whole collection of eyelashes, plus fingernails and two used condoms. The note was from his court file too. A little letter he’d sent to an ex that was conveniently vague but threatening.’
Still Phillips did not talk.
‘I imagine that Harriet doing a runner scared you quite a bit, though. You didn’t know what had happened, whether or not she had actually gone to kill herself. But you were confident that you’d undermined her sufficiently to anyone who mattered that no one would believe any stories about family violence. And that anything else she said would be dismissed as the delusion of a crazy person.’
She stopped. Waited. And finally Grant Phillips spoke.
‘Look,’ he said, as though trying to reason with an obstinate toddler, ‘I can see you’ve worked very hard on this but the conclusions you’ve drawn are insulting and frankly ridiculous.’ He spoke in the same pleasant tone he always used, except it was no longer smooth and comforting, now it was chilling. ‘I’d like to talk to someone higher up.’ He went to stand.
‘Sit down,’ Jillian directed. ‘We haven’t finished yet.’
He did not move.
‘She told you to sit down,’ McClintock growled, and Phillips reluctantly returned to his seat.
Of course – he needs a man to tell him.
While Grant Phillips remained in the interview room for the bureaucratic process that followed significant charges, Jillian and McClintock met with Harriet Phillips, who had been brought into the station some hours earlier. Without the fear for her physical safety, she was ever so slightly more relaxed. She was rereading the draft statement Mossman had already prepared with her, in anticipation of signing before the day was through.
Taking a seat opposite her, Jillian felt ashamed of her earlier blindness to Harriet’s suffering.
‘I’m so very sorry,’ she said, ‘that I didn’t realise what was happening sooner.’
Harriet mustered a half-smile and took Jillian and McClintock through a little of her history with the charming Grant Phillips. She told them how they had met when she was nineteen and he was twenty-four. How she had married him a year later and thereafter become his prisoner. She told them how she was expected to cater to his every whim in private and treated as some precious, delicate princess in public. When she displeased him she was made to sleep on the floor, and to eat dog food. She was trapped within the appearance of upper-middle-class respectability and trotted out on a thousand different occasions where she would be referred to as crazy and treated with contempt. Her self-esteem, already delicate, disappeared. The easiest way to exist was to capitulate. Phillips told her that if she left he would make sure she never saw their son again, and she believed him because he knew the law and she didn’t. As soon as Damien was old enough she told him he needed to leave, and he did. Then Phillips told her that if she left, he would kill her. ‘Every morning, I thought, “Today he’ll kill me”,’ Harriet said. ‘And until Kaye came along I completely believed that.’
She confirmed that on the night of the party, Kaye had arranged for a taxi to wait outside and had slipped her a hundred dollars. ‘But then I dropped it, stupid clumsy Harriet, and after that he was really suspicious. It was as though he knew something was up and I was so spooked I didn’t want to try and leave. That night, on the car ride home he said to me, “You know if you try and make a run for it I’ll kill Brasher?” I decided that was it. I wouldn’t try again, but then when I found out what had happened to Kaye, I figured it was probably him, and then, well, he killed Brasher anyway. It was punishment for burning his toast that morning. The funny thing was, after that I knew I had to go and I knew the funeral might be my only opportunity. And staying would have been so insulting to Kaye’s memory.’
Her plan had been to remain at the refuge until she felt it was safe, then travel to Sydney to sign the court documents and begin the litigation process. ‘Kaye had thought of everything,’ she said sadly. ‘She assumed I’d be able to get out the night of the party, and that she’d be able to help, but there was also a whole network of people she’d set up for me, all ready and waiting.’ She began to sob. ‘I will feel responsible for her death for the rest of my life.’
‘You have nothing to feel responsible for,’ McClintock said. ‘Just feel grateful that you had the opportunity to cross paths with two such brave, clever women.’
‘Two?’ Jillian said, and McClintock smiled.
He’s talking about me.
‘And an excellent man too.’
Epilogue
A feeble sunlight pawed at the brown water of the Yarra River as Jillian waited for McClintock and Des. They did not typically do breakfast meetings, Des not being a morning person, but the events of the past weeks had unfolded with such cascading urgency that there’d been no time to debrief, to touch on the things that had particularly surprised or outraged them, to try to find some black humour in the misery.
It was just after eight and Jillian had been awake since five, when Ollie had emitted his first shriek of the day. She had taken him into the lounge room for breakfast, and they sat with the low murmur of the television news. She was creating an intimacy with her son, though it did not come naturally to her – the soothing, the petting, the purposeful affection. She was not a physically expressive person. Her new psychologist had insisted, however, that every interaction made a difference, brought her a fraction closer to Ollie, and that one day it would be incomprehensible to her that they had not always been bonded.
Things will get better. You just need to do the work and have a little faith in yourself.
Jillian had taken additional time off in the aftermath of Grant Phillips’ arrest. It had been difficult, for a woman who so loved being in control, to allow her colleagues to begin the next stage of proceedings without her, but there were more important things that required her attention.
She had obtained the referral for intensive treatment of the anxiety that she now acknowledged had continued to plague her. Three times a week she attended individual and group therapy. Three times a week Aaron came with her and held her hand as she recounted in detail the strain that becoming a mother had placed on her and her understanding of herself, how it had undermined her self-confidence in her capacity as an adult and her ability to love. Things were slowly getting better. There were times now, small and fleeting, when she would experience a pang of love for her child so strong that it hurt her chest. It was terrifying. It was invigorating.
She yawned as she swiped through the photos she’d taken of her son, her fingernails still the lightest brown from the hair dye she’d used the week before – a necessary step towards returning to her old self.
She looked around for her colleagues as she reached for her coffee. The first signs of spring were beginning to show themselves, in the tentative blossom buds, the nesting birds, the sweetness in the air. Commuters were belching out of Flinders Street Station subway at regular intervals. In another month or so these people wearing heavy coats and puffing condensation through lips dry with cold would be in short sleeves and sunglasses.
‘You good?’ McClintock asked, approaching from behind in his full riding kit. She had barely spoken to him in the days since Grant Phillips’ arrest; he had been consumed with the process of moving things from the investigation to the prosecution stage and she with family.
‘I’m okay, you?’
‘I was up until three writing my law school application letter.’ He yawned dramatically.
‘Oh god, you should have cancelled.’
‘Nothing a coffee won’t fix.’ He ordered with a beatific smile to the waitress and Jillian laughed.
He honestly can’t help himself.
‘There’s the boss man,’ McClintock said on seeing Des loping along the path. It was strange to see Des outside the comfort of his office at any time of day, but it was particularly odd at such an early hour.
‘Morning,’ McClintock said brightly.
Des grunted. ‘What bloody time do we call this anyway?’
‘He needs a coffee to warm up,’ Jillian said.
When he was sufficiently caffeinated and meals had been ordered, Des was able to speak. ‘You chat to the prosecutor?’ he asked McClintock.
‘Yup, she was happy. Obviously still wants a few more things from us, but she seemed optimistic. She said it was inevitable that he’d get home detention rather than being sent off to the Remand Centre.’
‘That seems a bit unfair when Brian Shanahan is on remand – he didn’t actually kill anyone.’ The different holding patterns for the two arrests ate at Jillian. Grant Phillips, with his long history of domestic violence and harassment of women, and facing a murder charge, would be confined to his stately home where to some extent his life could carry on as usual. Meanwhile a man who had not killed anyone, however disgusting his other activities were, was now being held in a concrete box not much larger than he was.
Justice isn’t perfect. Justice isn’t even just.
‘You’d prefer Shanahan back in his caravan plotting how to make his new wife miserable?’ McClintock asked.
‘Not at all, I’m just saying there’s a disparity there.’
‘At least,’ McClintock said, ‘Phillips’ reputation is well and truly muddied now; even if he gets off on the murder charge, he’ll still be a pariah. And Angela Hui told me the allegations against him have been referred to parliament. The allegations against Maiden too.’
‘Saul Meyers ran a loose ship,’ Jillian said. ‘If Kaye Bailey had lived to take over that place . . .’
Their meals arrived – eggs benedict for Des, a protein bowl for McClintock, French toast for Jillian. The man at the next table began watching a YouTube report on the imminent cricket tour in South Africa.
‘Smith’ll get us over the line,’ McClintock said confidently.
‘He’s a bloody idiot,’ Des said. ‘The whole lot of them are hopeless and he’s the worst.’
McClintock signalled the waitress for another coffee then said to Jillian, ‘Did you eat all my cashews? The ones in the green tub on my desk?’
‘I did. But I bought you a new packet. They’re in my bag.’
‘I didn’t mind, just wondering,’ he said with a smile. ‘Feeling pretty comfortable, are we?’
‘I get very comfortable when there are snacks around.’
‘You’ve opened a can of worms there, mate,’ Des told McClintock. ‘I once made the mistake of telling her where I kept my Tim Tam stash. She ate me out of them in a day.’
‘Alright, alright!’ Jillian said in mock annoyance. ‘That’s enough. I have more news – Harriet Phillips called me late last night. Poor thing, I don’t think she really has anyone much to talk to yet, he basically controlled her every interaction for their entire marriage.’
‘How’s she going?’ McClintock asked.
‘She’s okay. She’s in Sydney. Her first hearing is next week. She said she’s got a psychologist lined up, and that everyone believes her, which she sounded genuinely surprised about. I hope she finds her feet and he doesn’t drag it all out unnecessarily.’
‘’Course he will, it’s the last way he has of exercising control over her,’ said McClintock. ‘By the way, I still don’t totally understand how she got out, of the wake, I mean, and over to the refuge.’
‘Do you remember that woman at the funeral on crutches? Sigourney. Kaye had worded her up that Harriet might need to get to the refuge at short notice and told Harriet about her too. Somehow, Sigourney managed to have a quiet word to Harriet at the wake. Sigourney said she could have a car outside in ten minutes. It was a pretty risky operation, really. I suspect Harriet wouldn’t have had the strength to go through with it if Grant had intercepted her.’
‘When did you realise it was him?’ McClintock asked. ‘I still can’t for the life of me figure out how you got to it after the interview with Shanahan, and his DNA match. He was too perfect for it.’
‘A few things clicked the night we were at the pub,’ Jillian said. ‘The taxi driver who told me he was waiting for someone reminded me of the taxi outside the court the night of the murder. And then you’d been talking about your dad, Michael had talked about how people groom each other, there was the photo on Kaye’s phone, and then I thought of Harriet dropping that money. Why would she react as she did? I realised I had accepted Phillips at face value, and I shouldn’t have. He’d worked me, he really had. I began to suspect it was him but I didn’t understand why he would murder Kaye. But slowly it all just fell into place. Then once he read out the judgement, I was one hundred per cent sure. Kaye had pinned him twice. She was going to ruin his reputation and, assuming her judgement was held up, ensure that Harriet would get almost everything they owned.’
McClintock whistled.
‘How’d he get the earrings?’ Des asked.
‘Oh, she hadn’t worn them to the funeral, they were another pair. He just needed something with her DNA on it, and of course he already had access to Shanahan’s DNA and a bunch of his abusive letters, they were from the court file too.’
‘He wasn’t worried about the letters getting forensically dated? Or Shanahan having some incredible alibi?’
‘I think he took a gamble that it would be too hard to date the letters. They were relatively recent – less than a year old – so it would’ve been hard to narrow them down. Bit different from something that was four hundred years old. And I think he probably took another gamble that we, and everyone else, would take his word over Brian Shanahan’s, if it ever came down to it.’
‘He’s a sneaky bastard.’ Des shook his head.
‘Well, he spent years doing criminal law. He knew what to do. I have another update, too. An email came through late last night from Angela Hui regarding those colourful photographs Kaye had been receiving.’
‘Oh yeah?’ McClintock was interested. ‘Who was it?’
‘Tomir!’ Jillian said. ‘The security manager. Can you believe it? After Bailey died he started sending them to Angela, and one of the other blokes in the security team happened to see his phone, dobbed him in.’
‘I never want to set foot in that place again,’ McClintock said. ‘It just changes so much of the way you see ordinary people.’
‘I agree,’ said Jillian. ‘Rahul Sharma’s so nice on TV and the wife presents as such a lunatic, and yet she’s the better person of the two. She’s a drunk but he’s a violent narcissist – I have no doubt about that. Andrew Maiden was definitely reported to AHPRA, by the way.’
‘Mummy will get him out of that one,’ Des said. He looked at Jillian, eyes narrowed. ‘Are you going to be like that with your boy? Always fixing his mistakes, babying him?’
The man at the next table got to his feet. Seagulls were already waiting to pick at his leftovers. ‘I hope so,’ Jillian said as one neatly collected a finger of toast and flew under the table to enjoy it privately.
I do. I really do.
Acknowledgements
With many thanks to the following people: my darling Benny and beautiful Mum for the most precious of gifts – time to write, patience through my bad tempers, and thoughtful feedback; Martin Shaw for taking a chance on a newbie who takes weeks to respond to emails; Cate Paterson for making the offer; Cate B, Bri and the lovely team at Pan Mac for gentle guidance and again, taking a chance; my boys for keeping me sufficiently humble by being utterly underwhelmed that their mother birthed a book and a baby sister concurrently; my family for their enthusiastic support. I was in the fortunate position of being able to donate a portion of my advance to two of the organisations that deal with some of the themes in this book – specifically, Our Watch and PANDA. Both do extremely important and under-recognised work and can be located online for those interested in some further reading.
Author biography
Mali Waugh has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Monash University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked in a library, a chocolate shop and as a lawyer. This is her first novel.
Pan Macmillan acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. We honour more than sixty thousand years of storytelling, art and culture.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, institutions and organisations mentioned in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe actual conduct.
First published 2023 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
