Cutters End, page 2
The phone went dead. Satisfied, she opened the door again, zipped up her pack, hauled it over one shoulder, and walked across to where the man had finished with the bonnet and was wiping his hands on his jeans. As she approached, he moved to her and took her pack. ‘Jump in, mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll put this in the back.’
She opened the passenger door and climbed into the vehicle. In the rear-view mirror she could see him lifting up a tarpaulin and placing the jerry can, then her pack, in the tray of the ute. He hooked up the cover again and climbed in beside her.
‘Thanks for this,’ she said. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’
She could see the old creep from the roadhouse staring at her through the window, the fading light on the glass giving him a ghostly air. She smiled back hard, giving him the finger as they pulled out. Stuff you, you old sleaze, is what she thought. I’ll never have to see you and your shitty shop again.
Police Media Briefing: 5 January 1990, 11:00
An unidentified body has been recovered some five kilometres from the road, 250 kilometres to the north of Port York. Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward. At this stage, all lines of inquiry are being considered.
CHAPTER 2
October 2021
Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti, four weeks into his long-service leave, was suffering a hangover. Not the worst, but bad enough. I’m showing my age, he thought. Once, he would have stayed out till 4 am then turned up to footy training. Now, unless he got to bed before midnight he was knackered.
The hoover lurching forward and back over the carpet gave him a seasick feeling. A hangover while vacuuming. Purgatory for those who’d only minorly stuffed up their lives. But still, the remnants of the Twisties weren’t going anywhere and the carpet was relatively new. He wiped his forehead and manoeuvred the brush into a corner, where it gave out a sickening noise before turning into a high-pitched wail.
He flicked the vacuum off-switch with his toe, got the tube, gave it a shake. A Lego man fell out and he stooped to pick it up, feeling the blood rush to his head. A little Yoda stared at him and Mark looked at it for a moment before throwing it behind the couch. Even the Force wasn’t with him today. Only thing with the power to heal was a souvlaki and a Coke. Lamb and garlic sauce.
Mark’s foggy brain clicked into gear, registering the thought. Souvlaki for breakfast? Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. He wandered into his eldest son’s bedroom. Sam, seven years old, was reading to his younger brother Charlie. The two of them looked like an advertisement. No sign of the tears and screaming earlier, the fight Sam had put up to stay at home rather than go to another day of Year 2. Sam pointed out a word to Charlie and the younger boy repeated it with care. It was heart-warming; he should probably take a photo or something. But this was not the time to ponder cuteness. Mark needed that souva. Besides, he knew the harmony could only be short-lived. In two seconds, mayhem would reign. ‘Kids,’ he said, ‘in the car quick. Let’s get going.’
‘Kelly, I’m taking the boys in!’ he called, while his sons wrestled with their bags.
His wife’s head snapped around the door, glasses on the end of her nose and looking none too happy.
‘What’s that?’
‘Thought I’d drop Charlie at kindy after I take Sam in. Might pick up something for breakfast.’
‘Getting some hangover food, are you?’
‘Yep.’
Her head whipped back behind the door before reappearing. ‘Can you pick me up the papers?’
‘Which ones?’
‘All of them.’ Kelly was a lawyer, currently working on a high-profile family violence case. Checking the papers regularly, she was able to keep up to date with emerging cases, the prosecutors involved, the dates for parole, the judges presiding, the allegations of harassment and corruption. Her work was brutal, the hours ridiculous. Christmas drinks at Mitchell & Co. Solicitors were never much fun.
He said yes to the papers and, picking up the keys, waited while Kelly kissed the boys before heading out the door. It was cold. He considered going back inside to get a jacket but knew that would only cause more delays and requests. He was a man on a mission. Souva with garlic sauce and a Coke for breakfast.
He dropped the boys off, first Sam at his pretentious boys’ school – no tears now, a relief – and then Charlie at a nearby kindy. Once on his own in the car, he turned the radio to classic rock and sang along to the Divinyls. Fingers playing guitar on the steering wheel, he mused once more about the state of his hangover. Surely he’d only had five or six beers, how could anybody feel that bad? Drinks after squash with his teammates had turned into a mini session at the pub. He cast his mind back to uni days and the last year of school. Out all hours of the night at pubs and clubs with names like Velvet and Countdown and Rios. Those were the days, he thought fondly for a moment. Those were the days before kids and wives and mortgages and Yodas and vacuuming. In those days he wouldn’t have given a toss about Twisties on the carpet. Was there even carpet in his old share house? He struggled to remember. He hoped not.
The Divinyls finished and Snap! started up. Shitty music, but great beats. Could lift a man’s mood if he wasn’t feeling so down. It wasn’t that he was unhappy, just a bit low. Not morose at all. On the contrary. An intelligent, beautiful wife, two healthy sons and a nice house in the leafy ’burbs of Adelaide – by all accounts he had it all. He even had an inground pool.
He pulled into the main street and alongside the takeaway. Inside, Omar was leaning on the counter watching morning TV. In the background, loud Turkish music played. He gave a sidelong glance to Mark. ‘Souvlaki?’
‘Jesus, Omar, how well do you know me? This is getting a little familiar, don’t you think? What if I felt like a falafel and tofu baguette?’
The big man wouldn’t budge. ‘Souvlaki coming up.’
Mark sighed and got a Coke from the fridge, peeled back the tab and had a long drink. Not for the first time that morning he thought that he needed to try to get healthy again, maybe start running or something. Squash once a week just wasn’t cutting it. It wasn’t that he’d got fat yet, but at fifty years old he could see the signs, he could see the signs.
After the episode with Detective Senior Sergeant Southern, Mark had acknowledged the gentle nudge by seniors to take long-service leave, but a month into it and he felt strangely deflated. Where was the customary trip around Australia with the family in a Jayco van? He wanted that obligatory shot of his boys holding a baby crocodile beside a cut-out of Bindi Irwin at the Australia Zoo. Instead, he’d taken on the childcare while Kelly focused on her job. Fair, but that didn’t make it fun.
Omar handed him his souvlaki and he stepped outside to sit on the plastic chair provided. First bite and he relaxed.
Now this is what I need, he thought, this is what a man needs after five or eight beers and fifteen minutes of hard vacuuming. This will make all doubts about life fade away.
His phone rang and the name registered as Angelo – his former colleague, now a bigwig in the South Australian force and rising. Mark paused before taking the call. ‘Superintendent Conti, this better be good,’ he said. ‘I’m having an epiphany here.’
The line crackled and Angelo’s voice faded in and out. ‘Mark. I’m going to send you a photo and I want you to tell me if you can identify the person in it.’
Mark put down his food and waited, gazing at the phone.
A moment later, a grainy photo came through and he stared at it, a jolt of recognition forcing him to sit up straight and take a breath.
The phone rang again. ‘You know her?’
‘Clearly – I’m in the photo, aren’t I?’
‘Mark.’ His old friend’s voice sounded weary. ‘Can you help us?’
CHAPTER 3
Ingrid Mathers had something about her, Mark thought, everyone could tell you that. She was clever for a start, and funny. She was good at impersonations: check-out chicks, Russian gymnasts, the local bishop; no one was sacred. People were drawn to Ingrid; gatherings were boring when she wasn’t there. It made him think of himself at parties, eye on the door, waiting for her to arrive.
Mark remembered watching Ingrid before he recognised that he liked her: watching her work in class, hoping she wouldn’t stuff up in tests, seeing her at her locker pulling out books, talking close with the other girls. Ingrid was kind too, he remembered that now. She partnered up with the kids in PE who had no friends, and she stood up to the bullies. White hair straight out of a Big M ad, and perfect teeth. Small eyes, a greeny blue. She was skinny but most people were back then. She had freckles and a nose always in a stage of sunburn. Not the best-looking girl in school, not the smartest, not the coolest; but at sixteen years of age he’d been stumped by her, shocked at the strength of feelings, which were a good part lust but something else too. In all his adult life, he’d never met anyone like her. And now, thirty years later. Ingrid Mathers.
When Angelo filled him in on the case and asked him what he required, he’d said yes without hesitation. He’d done so with a need to get straight in the car and drive, drive, drive. At home, he didn’t have time to fill Kelly in on the particulars, just told her that Angelo wanted him in regard to work and he’d be home late. It wasn’t unprecedented, but he felt the chill. He packed, gave her a quick kiss goodbye, and headed out the door just as his mother-in-law was arriving. She threw him a dirty look. ‘Leaving again?’ It hurt; she knew it would.
‘Just for work, Rosalie, a day. No need to worry.’
‘I hope not.’
He stepped back to open the door for her, but she bustled past, pushing it herself and ignoring him. He couldn’t blame her, not really.
Two hours into the trip, driving in the police lease car on the highway heading east, Mark clipped a roo on his side window. The grey body ramming his car gave a sickening thud and for a split second he thought he’d hit a woman wearing a beige suit. The roo jumped wildly into the middle of the road and he braked, heart pumping. Natalie Merchant crooned. The roo stood, stunned, before lurching into a nearby paddock. Mark pulled to the side of the road and got out, breathed deeply, stretched, checked the window. It was cracked and the door dented too. He’d have to fill in forms, get some quotes, do some explaining to head office about the damage to their vehicle.
He flexed his fingers and walked, trying to shed the feeling of dread he’d had when the roo made contact. Bang! How fast it had happened; the grey blur, the dull thud and the brakes. For a few minutes he looked around half-heartedly for the animal, unsure of what he’d do if he found it dying. Kill it, but with what? A rock, bash its head in. There was no sign of it. A car raced by, windows down and music loud; it gave him a start.
At the next little town, Mark bought a coffee and a pie, and ate it while driving, bits of pastry flaking onto his jumper. Sauce dripped onto the upholstery and he tried to wipe it off. No luck. Another form to fill out. The coffee was bad but hot and made him feel better. Natalie Merchant finished, and First Aid Kit started up. The women’s sad voices called to him like sirens and he drove and drove, the highway increasingly lonely, the landscape filled with yellow paddocks, long driveways and stone fences. He made it to the small town of Brae Inlet by midday, the sun hidden by ominous coastal clouds. Mark checked the address again and pulled up at the front of a weatherboard house. It made him sad, that beaten-down house, the shades closed and paint wearing like old skin.
He took a moment or two to collect himself before getting out of the car. A westerly battered; seabirds shrieked in the sky. Mark knocked on the door, drew a breath, pulled his shoulders back.
A woman answered.
‘Hello, Ingrid,’ he said.
CHAPTER 4
Ingrid took a step back, took a step forward and then was still. She took a while to register.
‘Mark,’ she said. ‘Mark Ariti. I’m not sure why you’re here, but hello.’ She looked up and down the street and remained standing in the doorway, her dark silhouette surrounded by light. ‘Is this some type of reality game show? Are there cameras in the bushes?’
‘Now, why would you think that?’
‘Because I haven’t seen you in, like, thirty years.’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘And you come here looking like a, like you’re on official business. Like a cop or something.’ Understanding grew on her face. ‘You are a cop, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sorry. Acting Inspector.’
‘No need to be sorry, I get it now. Well, I’ve got to go out in an hour.’ She sounded resigned. ‘Just let me know what I’ve got to do.’
‘Maybe first ask me in? I’m freezing my balls off here.’
Ingrid stood aside to let him through, and he caught a whiff of something like a rainforest. He briefly thought of running streams and a canopy of dripping leaves. She shut the door and moved in front of him in the narrow corridor. Their arms brushed.
‘Down here,’ she said. ‘I’ve got the fire on.’
A woodstove gave off welcome heat in the small room and he glanced around. It was the opposite of his own living room. Rugs on the floor, a sunken yellow couch piled with cushions, standing lamps and books all about. He recalled how much she used to read. A bookcase was jampacked with novels of every type, with more scattered on every surface. There was a bunch of flowers falling out of a jam jar and a red painting of a girl midway into a handstand. The rug closest to the fire was strewn with paper, and a half-drunk cup of tea sat on a wonky tower of art journals.
‘Sorry about the mess.’ She kicked a shoe under the couch.
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Can I get you a drink or something?’ She hovered near the door.
‘Maybe just a coffee.’
When Ingrid left the room, he had a closer look around. Green paint on the walls was cracking in parts, and the floorboards needed a polish. The rug, a Moroccan style with patterns and swirls, was clearly worn. It would be a bugger to vacuum, he thought briefly, before turning his eye to the books. Classics, crime, architecture and languages. All academic stuff, but hey, wasn’t that Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? He leant in and confirmed that it was. A heap of old newspapers, local ones, tied up with a piece of string. There were photos. One he recognised as her mother and father standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, another of two young children and one of a man, tall and thin with blond hair, squinting into the sun. He wondered briefly at the life she’d had since school.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ingrid returned. ‘I’ve got no good coffee left. Will you have tea? Or a wine?’
He wavered; he felt like a drink, could do with one right now. But he was here under the banner of the force. Reinvestigation. Just for two weeks, a secondment from his old department. Angelo had sorted it all with his workplace, with the various seniors and admin people – of course he had. And here he was, as Acting Inspector Ariti no less. There was no way he could have a drink. Mark glanced at Ingrid, standing in the doorway, her blonde hair wispy in the heat from the fire. ‘Tea would be great, thanks. No milk.’
Ingrid turned on her heel and left once more. Mark flicked the papers on the floor with his shoe. They were pages and pages of sketches: coloured, black and white. He bent down towards one; a fruit bowl – pears and oranges. The likeness was good, very good. Another one, unfinished, of a single red line with the beginnings of a person at the top.
‘Here you go.’ Ingrid held up a cup of tea in a saucer with a biscuit on the side. ‘I found you a bickie. Can’t guarantee its freshness.’
He straightened up, face red as if he’d been reading her diary, when Ingrid nodded at the papers. ‘Ideas for prints. Today I got them all out and tried to decide which ones to work on. I’ve got to be sure about them before I begin mixing.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s all a bit crap, I’ve hardly sold anything in ages.’
He sat down on the yellow couch – sank into it – and had to balance his cup and saucer while he rearranged himself. From somewhere else in the house Fleetwood Mac was playing. He took a sip of his tea. ‘You’re an artist?’
‘I try to be.’ Her words were flat. She sat on the floor cross-legged, effortlessly bringing the cup down with her. ‘But most of what I paint is shit.’ She took a sip and began to rearrange her sketches into a pile. ‘I do a bit of teaching now and then too.’
‘I like your house,’ he said after a pause. ‘It’s just the sort of place I imagined you to live in.’
‘You imagined my style of house?’
Steady, son, he told himself. ‘I mean, you were always kind of messy.’
‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘Old habits don’t die.’
They sipped their tea. They dipped their bickies in the tea. They drank the tea.
Mark looked about the room again, trying to think of something to say. His eyes rested on a painting; a copy, encased in a cheap wooden frame. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I remember that print from Art in Year 10 – what’s it called again? Something about Odysseus?’
Ingrid followed his gaze. ‘Penelope and Her Suitors,’ she said, and they both looked at the image of the woman at a loom, reaching down to bite a piece of string, while at her window a group of men stood with open arms, bearing gifts, beseeching.
‘I used to think, why doesn’t she just get a job?’ Ingrid gave a snort. ‘Move towns or whatever? All she does is wait. So pathetic.’
‘Why keep it then?’ Mark said, eyes still on Penelope, her red dress luscious in the darkened room.
‘Maybe I’ve grown more forgiving with age.’ Ingrid shrugged. ‘Plus, I got it for five bucks at an op shop.’
‘Bargain.’
They finished their tea and put their cups down almost at the same time. Ingrid turned hers upside down onto the saucer and examined the tea leaves.
‘What exactly are you doing here, Mark?’ she asked without looking up.
Mark cleared his throat, remembered why he was here, what had been asked of him. ‘I think you know that, Ingrid. Superintendent Conti warned you someone would be coming.’
