An Isolated Incident

  I sat on the floor meaning to scoop the bits and pieces back into the bag and then throw the bag in the linen cupboard until I could decide what to do with it properly. I can’t say what happened except that when I came to it was after three and my hair and nightie were stuck to my sweaty skin and I was shivering hard enough to shatter bone and all the stuff was laid out there just as it had been.

  I didn’t think, just did what I’d meant to two hours earlier, shoved it all back into the bag and then shoved the bag into the cupboard. I showered for the second time that night and then crawled into bed. I thought, I am going mad. I said it out loud. Then I said, ‘Talking to yourself, way to prove the point.’ And that made Bella laugh and laugh.

  Strathdee animal deaths unrelated to Bella Michaels

  May Norman

  17 April 2015

  (Unpublished)

  Strathdee police are appealing to the public to help them find the person responsible for at least three cases of animal cruelty. In the most recent case, a dead tabby cat with its muzzle taped shut was yesterday found behind Strathdee football oval’s toilet block. Local vet Dr Melody Nicholson said that the cause of death was ‘asphyxia and strangulation’. Dr Nicholson also confirmed that both a cat found in the flower garden of the Memorial Park on 3 April and a dog found behind the post office on 12 April were killed in similar ways, although the dog also suffered a head injury.

  ‘These appear to be incidents of deliberate cruelty carried out on innocent, defenceless animals and we are taking them extremely seriously,’ said a spokesman for the Strathdee police. All three animals are believed to have been strays, but police have issued a warning to all pet owners to keep their animals inside or safely secured until the perpetrator is found.

  Police say there is no reason to believe that the animal deaths might be connected with the unsolved murder of Bella Michaels. ‘At the moment we are treating them as unrelated, but again we urge anyone with information about these crimes or any others to come forward and tell us what they know.’

  Saturday, 18 April

  On the page, the TV and from a distance, Chris looked nothing like her half-sister, but in person, up close, the resemblance was there. The smile Chris flashed when May complimented her cherry-red boots was the same as the one beaming out from every photo of Bella. The accompanying crinkles around the eyes were the same, too, though Chris’s didn’t smooth all the way out when the smile dissolved the way May imagined Bella’s would have. Chris was a little taller than Bella, as far as May could tell, and as top-heavy as her younger sister was pear-shaped. When she said, ‘Come on in,’ it was with the same broad country accent and deep, husky voice as that in the short nursing home video clip the TV news played over and over. That voice coming from sweet, young blonde Bella was a surprise, but out of Chris it was perfect.

  ‘Have a seat if you like.’ Chris gestured to a round table covered in a rose-print cloth. In the centre of the table was a box of tissues, next to it a jug of water and two glasses.

  ‘Is it okay if I record our conversation?’

  ‘Ah, just wait a sec, okay? I’m not sure if I even want to do this. I mean, I’m not keen on –’

  ‘I know you’ve had some rotten experiences with the media, Chris, so I do understand that you’re wary. But the recorder is there to help me get things right, which is what you want, yes? To have someone write the truth about Bella?’

  Chris smiled again, but it was the smile of a barmaid about to tell a boozed-up patron he’d be served no more. ‘I don’t want that at all. I don’t want anything written about Bella.’

  ‘Why did you agree to meet with me then?’

  She sighed. ‘Because I know you lot don’t care what I want and that you’ll write your bloody articles anyway.’

  ‘And you want to make sure –’

  ‘I want to remind you that there are real people who get hurt all over again every time one of you decides to dig your dirty little fingers into the wound.’

  ‘I know that, Chris. I really do. The last thing I want to do is cause you more pain.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to. But you’re willing to.’

  May poured a glass of water, took a sip. ‘I am, yes, I suppose that’s true. But it’s also true it’d upset me greatly if that’s how this turned out. I want to make sure Bella isn’t forgotten, that the police, the public, the politicians, the bleeding-heart protestors and hard-arse law-and-order lobbyists – all of them – remember what happened to her, remember that whoever did it is wandering around free, breathing easier and easier with every day that goes by. That’s what I want to do, Chris. If reminding the world of all that hurts you, then that’s regrettable, but I still think it’s worth doing.’

  Chris tapped the tabletop with her soft, chewed-up fingertips. ‘I want to believe you, May.’

  ‘Why would I lie?’

  ‘Because I’m the golden get. I’m the source that’ll make your reporting stand out from the others.’

  ‘Who are these others, Chris? Who’s given you this idea that there’ll be some kind of journalist showdown?’

  She leant back and opened a drawer behind her, pulled out a short stack of business cards, splayed them on the table in front of May. ‘Six of them in the last two days. You lot have calendar alerts that go off if a terrible crime isn’t solved within two weeks, hey? Now’s the time to get the next of kin.’

  ‘No, but we do all understand that when a big new case hits the headlines, the last one is likely to slip from people’s thoughts.’

  Chris let out a sharp, vicious laugh. ‘You all think I’ll spill my guts now, because I’m jealous of the attention given to poor bloody Kate Bronson.’

  Kate Bronson, forty-one-year-old mother of five kids under ten, wife of a reasonably prominent businessman, grabbed while putting the garbage out after midnight, on the street outside her large, high-security home in a small, old-money suburb north of Sydney Harbour. Her body found a mere six hours later, lying right out on the footpath three streets away. Her photo and those of her small, stricken children and shell-shocked husband were everywhere the way Bella’s had been a week earlier.

  ‘Of course not. But you know how these things go. The nation is grieving. Australia is outraged. Australia is scared. We’ll never forget. Until the next photogenic victim comes along. Some of us aren’t ready to move on and we know that the victim’s family will be feeling the same way.’ May picked up the business cards, flicked through them, recognising the names. One of them had recently written a bestseller about a jailed gang of pack rapists. ‘Have you talked to any of these people?’

  ‘I’ve told ’em all to bugger off if that counts as talking?’

  ‘You took their cards though.’

  Chris shrugged one shoulder. ‘Easiest way to get rid of some people is to pretend you’ll think about what they’ve said and get back to them.’

  Yeah, but then you chuck the card in the bin right after, May thought. She slid one of the cards to the top of the pile. ‘Bet this bloke was hard to shake off.’

  Chris squinted at the name. ‘Don’t know if he was trying to fuck me as a way to get the interview or interview me as way to get me into bed.’

  ‘Hasn’t changed then.’

  Chris raised her eyebrows; May saw her opportunity.

  ‘Nine or ten years ago, when I was a cadet reporter, he was my mentor. Which meant, basically, sending me out to do the reporting, meeting me at the pub to take all my notes and write them up into a story under his by-line, and if the story came together quickly, screwing me in the back of his Camry before dropping the copy off at the office.’

  A smile. Slight, but real. ‘We’ve all had a mentor like that, I reckon.’

  ‘God save twenty-year-old girls from slightly-older men bearing bullshit world-weariness and hard-ons for giving advice.’

  ‘God save us a
ll. I’ve met more than my share these last weeks. Most of them coppers. Least I know to tell ’em to fuck off now. Doesn’t make listening to their bullshit any easier, but.’

  ‘The cops give you advice? About what?’

  Chris’s face hardened. She shook her head. ‘I haven’t agreed to an interview.’

  ‘Personal interest in the ways and means of mansplainers only.’ May held up her hands. ‘No notebook, no tape recorder, see.’

  ‘Yeah. That grub tried to get in my pants, you’re trying to become my BFF. Form a bond, make me like you, trust you.’

  ‘Chris, look, of course I want you to like me and trust me and speak to me on the record. But that doesn’t mean I’m bullshitting you here. Not everything a reporter says is part of an angle they’re working. I’m still a person.’

  ‘Nice angle.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  Chris snorted. ‘The cops think I shouldn’t talk to any reporters not screened by their media unit. They think I should do another press conference but only if I stick to their script. They think I should stop drinking so much, leave my job at the pub, incriminate my ex-husband by dobbing on him for every cross word he’s ever said, and they especially think I shouldn’t bring blokes back here for a tumble. When I don’t take their advice – which is always, because to hell with those useless pricks – they tell me I’m making their jobs harder or hurting the case or putting myself at risk or, my favourite, making myself and therefore Bella look bad.’

  ‘Cops told you you’re making Bella look bad? That’s disgusting.’

  Chris let out a deep sigh. ‘Thank you.’

  They sat looking at the table while somewhere nearby a motorbike revved to life and a dog barked its distress.

  ‘If you talk to me – on the record and in detail – I can write the kind of in-depth profile piece that’ll get national attention and of a different kind than the case has had so far. I think we can get it into one of the big women’s mags. Women’s Weekly would be my first pick. Large, totally engaged audience on its own, plus they have fantastic PR, which means it’s likely to get picked up and reported on in some of the papers, too. You’re a warm, charismatic woman, Chris, and middle Australia is going to be heartbroken for you. They’ll be talking about you and Bella at work, at the school gates, at the hairdresser, over dinner. We’ll make it so the whole nation is outraged by the fact the bastards haven’t been caught.’

  ‘It’s a good sales pitch, I’ll give you that, but here’s my problem.’ Chris reached back to the drawer again, slammed a piece of paper onto the table.

  May’s stomach clenched as she recognised it as a print-out of her AustraliaToday story about Nate Cartwright’s assault conviction.

  ‘Chris, listen, when someone close to a case –’

  ‘Do you have any idea what it might feel like to be grieving someone you love and have to read shit like this? Did it cross your mind how that’d be for him? Having the worst thing you’ve ever done dragged up in the middle of the worst pain you’ve ever felt?’

  May could feel the heat rising from her chest, soon to humiliatingly flush her face. She breathed through it, focusing on her fingertips pressed into the tabletop. When she was reasonably confident her voice would behave, she met Chris’s eyes. ‘Have you read any of my other stories about Bella?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, well, I think you should read how I’ve covered Bella’s story in its entirety before you decide –’

  ‘Won’t make a difference. I’ve read enough trashy crime writing in my time. I know what you’re about. Get the housewives of Australia to gasp over my sister’s gorgeous corpse, stir up the gossip about who might have killed her. If you can find a way to accuse the bloke the slutty sister’s boning, all the better.’

  A thrill surged through May. Slutty? Still sleeping with her ex? Gold.

  ‘I get it, Chris, I really do.’ She concentrated on keeping her tone calm. ‘I get what you hate about these kinds of stories. But you need to think about what they can achieve.’

  ‘Big sales for the magazine, big payday for the writer.’

  ‘Maybe, but that’s not what I’m in it for. I swear to you. I want to bring Bella to life for a broad audience, make those readers fall in love with her, think how she’s just like them, could be their best friend, their sister, and then – bam – they get hit with the horror, have to go through the grief. Yes, it’s a small, momentary grief, but it’s there. They feel it: the loss, the outrage. They’ll remember.’ Chris’s gaze hadn’t shifted from May’s face. She was breathing heavily, twisting a tissue into a mess of white splotches. May pushed on. ‘Next time they see some douchebag politician ranting about law and order because some rich prick got knocked on the head and robbed of his watch or hear some blowhard at the pub ranting about how feminism’s gone too far and women have it easy, the women who’ve read my story will remember Bella, remember she’s had no justice. They’ll stand up, they won’t let it go.’

  May had started speaking in desperation but as the words came she realised she had once believed all of this about the power of a well-written story. The quaver in her voice told her that maybe she still did.

  ‘Good speech. I’ll vote for you even if this cranky old sow won’t.’

  May’s head jerked towards the doorway where a behemoth of a man in a tour company t-shirt and obscenely short shorts held a loaf of bread in one hand and a white paper bakery bag in the other.

  ‘My ex-husband likes to drop in and insult me from time to time.’ Chris’s expression was as hard as ever, but there was a softness in her voice May hadn’t heard before.

  ‘Insult you and bring you teacake.’ The man crossed the room in two huge strides, put down his packages, leant against the sink, looking right at May. ‘You’re the reporter?’

  May nodded.

  ‘You came to the house before. I told you to get lost.’

  ‘Yes, I –’

  ‘I read all your articles.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yep, every one I could find.’ He turned, grabbed a glass platter from the draining rack and slid the teacake onto it. Without looking he opened the second drawer down to his right and grabbed a knife, then reached to his left and picked up three bread plates with one hand. ‘I liked ’em’, he said, bringing the cake and plates over to the table. ‘Nearly all of them.’ He winked at May and handed her a bread plate with a too-big piece of cake spilling over the sides.

  ‘Of course you did,’ Chris said. ‘They’re written for thickheads.’

  ‘Easy, you.’ His huge hand alighted for a millisecond on Chris’s head and then flew up to scratch his beard. ‘Nah, you’re a good writer. Not that I’m an expert, but I do read a bit and I reckon you’re good.’

  May felt herself breathing more slowly, became aware that her cheeks were cooling. Chris, too, seemed calmer. Nate’s presence had altered the energy of the room, made it feel relaxed, almost. This despite the deep thrum of shame she felt knowing this man had read the things she’d written about him.

  ‘Not an expert, that’s an understatement.’ Chris rolled her eyes. Her phone rang and she glanced down at it, then pressed her lips together. ‘Brandis,’ she said to Nate. She answered while walking out of the room. A door clicked closed somewhere in the back of the house.

  ‘Look thanks for –’

  ‘Once Chris realised you were the bird who wrote that shit about me she wanted to cancel your visit. I had to talk her out of it, convince her to hear you out.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s not for your sake, trust me.’

  ‘Okay. So why –’

  ‘You’re right. We need to keep Bella in the public eye. Someone must know something and they must be getting all eaten up inside. Not the scum who did it. I don’t expect they feel bad at all. But they live in the world, right? Someone they know s
uspects something. Someone saw or heard something weird. So we need to keep the pressure on for them. We need to make it so anyone who’s trying to forget or ignore their suspicions about their mate or whatever is in hell whenever they turn on the TV or go to the supermarket. They need to be tortured.’ A thin, mean note had crept into his voice and May saw that he noticed. He adjusted his posture. Gulped water from Chris’s glass. ‘So, I’m going to try and get her to talk to you, right? But don’t you go manipulating and screwing her over like you did to Julie Atkins.’

  ‘Julie – is that what she thinks?’

  ‘Well, yeah, because you did. But like I said, this isn’t about me and the shit you’ve written before. You promise to do right by Bella and I’ll help you get Chris on side.’

  Chris came back into the room and Nate went to her. She murmured something too low for May to hear and then, loudly, ‘Look, something’s come up so you need to go. But I’ll think about what you’ve said, okay?’

  ‘Okay. That’s great. And if you want to talk through anything, ask me any questions –’

  ‘Yeah. Leave your card or whatever on the table and we’ll get back to you,’ Nate said.

  May took out a card, hesitated at the sight of all those other cards. ‘Um, so this is from the place I worked at before but I’m not working for them anymore. My mobile’s the same though, so you can . . .’

  They weren’t listening. Chris was squeezing her phone like a stress ball and Nate was rubbing her arm. May was desperate to ask the question, fire guesses at them until she got a confirmation one way or the other, but she knew she was on shaky ground. Patience, respect, gentleness would be what got her in with these two. She propped her card up against the cake platter and thanked Chris for her time. Resisting the urge to crouch under the kitchen window and listen in was painful.