The Recipient

  “I-I just wanted to take a trip down the coast,” Shelley began, biting the inside of her lip. “Sass and I…we needed to blow off a little steam. She had been through a really hard time with her Nana but things were finally starting to look up. Pleasant seemed ideal.”

  Casey drew a notebook and pencil from inside her bag and began to take notes as Shelley watched her.

  “I got a couple of tickets from a friend. The plan was that we were going to meet up with a group from Melbourne Uni, pitch some tents near the Festival and just have a great time. And we did, at first. Everyone was happy. A couple in the group had brought some weed—nothing serious—but it put us all in the mood.” Shelley’s voice trailed off. She drifted into her memories. “On the Saturday, we all walked along the beach from the campsite to Pleasant itself and took in the concerts. The atmosphere was amazing.”

  The lines on her forehead deepened with the pain of her memories.

  “We were so happy, Sass especially. She really let her hair down, more than I’d ever seen her do before. She deserved to, you know?”

  She looked to Casey as if seeking some sense of understanding and Casey, for the first time, offered an empathetic smile.

  “Anyway, it was in the evening—Saturday night—when this guy just kinda turned up out of nowhere.”

  “A guy?”

  “I don’t know who he was. I’d never seen him before. None of us had. Except…”

  Shelley paused and looked down.

  “It was like…Sass knew him. She seemed shocked that he was there. It was weird. He turned up in this expensive car. It impressed the hell out of the others. But it bothered me.”

  “Why?”

  Shelley held her hands out, palms up. “I had this bad vibe about him and like, Sass never kept anything from me. We were close. She never told me that she was seeing anybody.”

  “Can you describe him?” Casey asked.

  Shelley shrugged and bowed her head. “We were all pretty out of it, myself included. There was lots of, you know, stuff on offer that night. I can’t be certain what I remember of him specifically. Except to say he seemed intense.”

  Shelley reached across and took the photograph from Casey.

  “I don’t know who took this. When he first showed up, we were all clowning around and showing off in front of his car because it was so expensive-looking. Sass played along with it for a bit but I could see she was uncomfortable. It was like, the longer this guy was around, the more she didn’t want him anywhere near us. She eventually led him away from the group.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Not far. Down to the beach. We all went back to partying at the main stage. It seemed like they were gone for ages. I was getting worried so, eventually, I went looking for them. When I found them, they were arguing.”

  “Arguing?” Casey asked. “About what?”

  Again, Shelley shrugged her shoulders and she tensed with frustration.

  “I don’t know,” she said, scratching her head harshly. “It was really awkward. I think she wanted him to leave. He was really cagey about something. And then suddenly, something changed in Sass. It was like, he’d convinced her to go with him.”

  “Convinced her?”

  “She saw me looking at them. She came to me and said she had to go. She wouldn’t tell me where. I was beside myself. I mean, this guy that I’ve never met turns up out of nowhere and all of a sudden, she’s going off with him. It wasn’t like her. It was like I didn’t know her.”

  Visible grief bubbled forth and Shelley seemed to collapse under the weight of it. She lowered her head, supporting it in her hands as she cried softly.

  “That was the last time I saw her alive.”

  “Why didn’t you go to police with this?” Casey asked breathlessly.

  “Because,” Shelley retorted. “We got busted that night for possession. ‘E’ was freely available and most of us were pretty wasted. It all happened right in the middle of Saskia going with him. I couldn’t remember half of what I’d seen. But I also…” Shelley clutched at herself. “I started getting these phone calls a few nights after the accident. Threatening phone calls.”

  “From this guy?” Casey asked incredulously.

  “I don’t know! They were creepy, distorted…I guess so. But it wasn’t just the calls. I was getting messages into my pigeonhole at uni. Clothes were going missing from my line. I had a couple of break-ins although there was no sign of anyone forcing their way in. Somehow they were able to just get in. Things—awful things—were being left there. Someone actually shit on my bed—more than once. It went on for a few weeks. I felt like I couldn’t go to anyone about it. Eventually, I had to get out. I left Melbourne. I put my studies on hold and just left.”

  Casey took a moment to comprehend the gravity of Shelley’s account. She had no reason to deny that what Shelley was saying was true but it left her facing the reality of another apparent dead end.

  Looking down at her notebook, she flipped the page, examining what she had written. She saw a note that read, ‘student papers’.

  “Lesia said that Shelley had some kind of trouble with her visa.”

  Shelley blinked through her tears and looked at Casey. “I didn’t think Lesia knew about that. She was so sick. We deliberately kept it from her.”

  Casey leaned forward. “Would you tell me about it?”

  Shelley took a deep breath in and blinked back her tears.

  “Sass got in a mix-up with the Immigration Department. She’d been working extra hours at the uni cafe to cover the bills while Lesia was undergoing chemotherapy. They were in danger of sinking under debt. Turns out Saskia was in breach of her visa conditions. She got reported and then, to add to the insult, they took her away. Department officers came to the school and just…took her.”

  Shelley’s lip trembled.

  “Where did they take her?” Casey asked.

  “The detention facility at Flaxley Park,” Shelley answered. “They didn’t say anything immediately but they later told Sass that until the situation was sorted out, she would have to remain in detention. It was terrible. They treated her like a common criminal.”

  Casey scribbled furiously on the page, which annoyed Shelley, but she continued.

  “Fortunately, Saskia’s support officer told us he was sure it could be sorted out quickly. That’s why we didn’t tell Lesia. We figured it was all just a big mistake so we told her that Sass had to go away on a field assignment. I sat with her in the hospital while she was having her treatment.”

  “Risky,” Casey said flatly.

  “It was. But then, all of a sudden, Sass was out. Just like that. I got a call from her to say she was free to come home. I went and picked her up myself.”

  Shelley’s expression tightened.

  “It was after she was released that I first thought something had changed in her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I suspected she might have met someone in the detention facility. I broached it with her but she was really aloof. She wouldn’t say anything. But I definitely sensed that she was seeing somebody.”

  “You think it was him?”

  Shelley nodded. “I do. Whoever it was, she kept him secret. Things were weird between us for weeks. But then, suddenly, she changed again. I think it went cold between them. She kinda came back. She was like her old self again. Then, she was…gone.”

  Quiet settled between them. A breeze picked up, causing the paper in Casey’s hand to flutter. There was nothing left to say. Shelley slumped back in her seat. Having unburdened her secret, she seemed exhausted.

  Casey considered the information.

  Suddenly she stood, slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder. Shelley looked up and sat forward as Casey stepped around the bench, preparing to leave.

  “That’s it?” Shelley asked incredulously. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll be in touch if I need anything further,” Casey answered. “In the meantime, you don’t
need to do anything. Just continue on as you have been.” Casey turned away as Shelley’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  “But, how can I do that now?” she protested, launching herself forward as Casey began walking away from her. “You come out of nowhere with all of this. How can I be sure you’re not putting me in danger all over again?”

  “You’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Shelley croaked. “Jesus, I don’t even know you. Why are you doing this to me—to Sass? What gives you the right?”

  Casey stopped in mid-stride and turned slowly back to face Shelley. Her expression was sad, rather than angry. Slowly Casey unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and separated it just enough so that Shelley could clearly see the scar on her chest.

  “Because I have her heart.”

  Shelley blinked at the scar, then at Casey. Her knees buckled.

  As Casey turned and strode away, Shelley squeezed her eyes shut, then they snapped open wide. In that moment, she felt something instinctual.

  “Wait!”

  Snatching up her bag, she rushed across the path, closing the short distance between herself and Casey.

  Casey watched as Shelley’s fingers searched desperately inside her shoulder bag until they latched onto a small object. Teasing it out carefully, she finally liberated it.

  She held it out to Casey. “She gave me this that night,” Shelley stammered.

  Casey took the small cloth purse in her hand and examined it. It was handmade, its surface adorned with tiny beads arranged in pretty patterns. She could feel the weight of small change inside it, as well as the crinkling of paper against the hard surface of a credit card sized object.

  Unzipping the purse, Casey felt inside it, taking out the piece of paper and the card: a Melbourne public transport card. She unfolded the yellowed piece of paper, a torn rectangle of note paper that bore the fragment of a letterhead in the top right-hand edge. Casey’s eyes were drawn to the contents in its centre. On it, hastily scribbled in pen, were a series of six groups of numbers and letters.

  SX801244

  SX708937

  SX394923

  SX803254

  SX987324

  SX293875

  Casey stifled an urge to gasp. She felt her tongue swell. Saskia’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. Her desperation. Her silent plea.

  Reciting the numbers together, until Casey mouthed them with her…

  Until she understood.

  “She told me to hold onto this and keep it safe,” Shelley explained. “I don’t know what they are but she was adamant that I take it.”

  Casey blinked away the image of Saskia’s face, looking up as Shelley began backing away. She held her arms out by her sides. “That’s all I have,” her voice quavered. “There isn’t anything more.”

  Shelley turned and left Casey alone on The Walk.

  Casey let her go, holding the piece of paper before her. She examined the numbers again, her mind numb with disbelief and realisation.

  She was trying to tell me, she thought.

  And then she noticed something else.

  Her eyes were drawn to the top right-hand corner of the paper, where it had been torn, presumably, from some sort of notepad.

  Though the logo of the letterhead was largely missing, Casey felt a sudden shock of a recognition at the name printed in bold Georgian font.

  And then she felt sick.

  It read, ‘Slattery & Ger…’

  CHAPTER 25.

  Casey parked the Volkswagen in the lot above the beach and peered through the windshield. Across the grass, she spotted Lionel sitting at the table in front of the jetty. She smiled wearily. He was holding a newspaper in both hands before him, and occasionally he absently lifted a cup of coffee that was sitting beside him without looking up from his reading. He appeared completely at peace.

  Getting out of the car, Casey stretched wearily then grabbed her backpack from the passenger seat. She trooped down the steps.

  Lionel sensed her presence even before he saw her. He turned and looked in her direction. “There you are,” he greeted with gruff cheerfulness.

  Folding the newspaper, he set it aside and lifted a second cup of coffee into view, setting it before her as she sat down opposite him. He then lifted an open bag of potato crisps and held it out toward her. Her eyes twinkled as she eagerly dipped her hand into the bag.

  “If you had been another five minutes, I would have devoured the entire packet.”

  “Glad I didn’t stick to the speed limit then.”

  Lionel’s brow furrowed until Casey disarmed him with a weary smile.

  “So,” he ventured. “You can claim quite the achievement. Driving all that way on your own.”

  “I was pissed off enough that the agoraphobia didn’t even get a chance,” Casey responded.

  Lionel’s bushy eyebrows flicked up. “And how did you fare?”

  “She opened up,” Casey slung her backpack down on the seat beside her. “As soon as I showed her the Audi, it was clear to me that she knew.”

  “Just like that?”

  Casey nodded. “Just like that. Actually, I think she was relieved to be finally able to tell someone.”

  She paused, shaking her head slowly as she collected her thoughts. She took a sip from her cup and looked at Lionel.

  “It seems that Saskia was involved with someone. And, we can be pretty certain that he was driving that car the night of her accident.”

  Lionel’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute, Shelley Agutter knew him?”

  “No. That’s the thing, she didn’t. Shelley says she never met him.”

  “I don’t follow,” Lionel’s expression tightened in confusion.

  “I think I do,” Casey said, taking the photograph of Shelley and Saskia at the Pleasant Festival out of her bag.

  “Saskia had been in trouble over her student visa. Something about working more hours than she was legally allowed to. She was reported to the authorities and, because she was deemed to be in breach of her visa conditions, she was sent to the Flaxley Park Immigration Detention Facility pending a review. That was where Shelley believed that she met a guy.”

  “Someone from the facility?”

  Casey shrugged. “Shelley doesn’t know. Seems that Saskia was a lot more private than anyone gave her credit for—even with her best friend. Whoever it was, Shelley believes that he had a lot to do with Saskia getting out. I think it was someone in a position of influence.” Casey handed Lionel the photograph. “It happened all of a sudden. One minute, Saskia was caught in this legal limbo with no apparent end and then, out of the blue, she got a call from Saskia to come and pick her up.”

  “Did her grandmother know about any of this?”

  “Apparently not. It happened during her hospital admission. Shelley and Saskia deliberately kept the detention from Lesia so as not to worry her.”

  “That seems rather a risky decision?” Lionel remarked. “What would they have done if she hadn’t been released?”

  “Well,” Casey said. “It’s a stretch, but I think that Saskia might have known that things were always going to fall in her favour, especially if this someone had a hand in helping fast-track her case.”

  Casey tapped her finger on the photograph, over the car. “This doesn’t strike me as the kind of car that just anybody drives, certainly not a fellow detainee.”

  “Not likely. They had influence over decision-making?” Lionel ventured, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  Casey leaned forward and stood, stretching her legs. “It’s only a theory. I’ve got nothing really to base it on just yet.”

  “What happened after? I don’t quite understand how Shelley didn’t meet this person. Weren’t she and Saskia best friends?”

  “That’s the thing,” Casey frowned. “Shelley said she noticed a change in Saskia after she was released. She became really secretive—or, at least, more secretive than usual. Saskia wouldn’t talk about
him. She deflected any questions about him. Shelley said it put a strain on their friendship. Then, all of sudden, the relationship with the mystery man went cold.”

  “Cold?”

  “Saskia just kinda returned. Became like her old self again. She still wouldn’t say anything about the guy but Shelley was just relieved to have Saskia back. She decided to let it go. And then, that last night down at the Pleasant Festival, he turned up.”

  Lionel’s eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. “I’m confused. I thought you said she never met him.”

  “No, she didn’t meet him as such,” Casey held up her fingers and wiggled them for effect. “She only saw him from a distance and not very clearly.”

  Casey paused, swinging her hand around as she searched for the right words to explain herself.

  “The group had been taking drugs. Shelley admitted they were pretty wasted, so no one could remember him in any great detail. Her only recollection was that he seemed intense. She became worried when Saskia said that he wanted her to leave the Festival with him.”

  “And she agreed to go,” Lionel said, his voice trailing away.

  Casey’s expression tightened. Her hand drifted down to her pocket, to the bulk of the small purse that Shelley had given her. Lionel watched as she took out the small object and cradled it in her hands before her. She gulped softly.

  “What’s wrong, Casey?” he ventured as she opened the purse and plucked a small square of paper from inside. Gingerly, she handed it to Lionel.

  “Shelley gave me this,” Casey said as she watched him unfold his glasses and place them on.

  He frowned, studying the scrawled handwriting.

  “Saskia gave it to Shelley, that final night at Pleasant. Saskia was adamant that she take it. But she wouldn’t say why. Then she was gone. That was the last time that anyone saw her alive.”

  Lionel inspected the numbers on the piece of paper, running his thumb down each of them in turn, mouthing the numerals as he went. “These look like…file numbers.”

  “Yeah, but file numbers for what?”

  Lionel lowered his hands and gazed at Casey.

  “Saskia Andrutsiv was detained in a federal immigration detention facility,” he said. “I’ll wager that these are detainee case file numbers.”