A Child's Book of True Crime (19 page)

“Let me help you!” Nursing his beer, Thomas strolled over.

Everyone stopped talking. Even the children waiting for their ice creams turned to watch. He took one handle, and together we started carrying the bin to the recycling station behind the art room. Thomas, unaffected by the attention, stared hungrily at my floral dress. Like a villain in a silent movie, all his carnality registered in his eyes and eyebrows. I gazed past him, back to the wall of staring faces. No longer was there such a thing as safety. No longer was there right or wrong. Now everyone seemed to me as though they were descended from a convict. The butcher had been sent down
for enticing a young female into his hut, giving her cakes, and taking liberties with her
. The baker had been
singing an indecent song
. The rich man:
whilst at Impression Bay he made cards from the leaves of the Bible
, and was given thirty lashes. The
poor man: he
attempted against the order of nature to commit with a ewe the detestable and abominable crime called buggery.

 • • • 

Behind the art room wall, out of view, I dropped the bin. “How long has Veronica known for?”

He took a deep breath. “Since, I don’t know, the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why did you presume I wouldn’t tell her?” He stared into the rubbish bin, then laughed. “She’s probably relieved you take me off her hands. It’s one less thing for her to worry about.” He relaxed his face, straightened up, and looked at me with an expression I had never seen before; his features were so regular that he was blindingly handsome and completely inscrutable. “Would you like a drink?” He held out the beer bottle.

“You were talking about leaving her.”

He sighed, and then in his lawyer-voice, told me, “Kate, marriage is a complicated thing. It’s very hard for two intelligent . . .” He paused, a smile forming. “Marriage is complicated.” He had started to unbutton my dress, and he could now see clearly I wasn’t wearing a bra. Leaning down, he pinned me against the wall. At first I tried to struggle, but he was forceful, and receiving his kisses I remembered again why people kiss. I wanted to put my lips to his face and take the tiredness from it. I wanted to show him I could make him lighter. The ice-cream van sang a tinny carnival song. I received each kiss, scared the whole blue recycling bin would tip over and spill, too electrified to move. When finally I did pull away I reached for the beer bottle and took a swig. “It tastes funny. Drinking it makes me feel funny.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Where does it make you feel funny?”

“I don’t like to say.”

“Tell me then”—he raised my skirt—“what you learned today at school.”

I jutted my chin. “Today’s Saturday.”

“Tell me what you learned last week.”

I twisted a lock of hair as he slid his hand between my legs. “
James and the Giant Peach
is a book by Roald Dahl about a boy who likes sex.” Wide-eyed, I whispered, “This boy likes entering the peach. It’s warm and sweet.”

Thomas ran his index finger along the line of my breast. “Your skin is glowing.”

“Oh, I was playing in the playground.” I moaned. “I like the swing and the slide.”

“The monkey bars?” He smiled.

“Yes, I like that.” His finger was now inside me.

“No one saw your underpants did they?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What noise does the kitty-cat make?”

“
Meow
.”

“What noise does the horsey make?”

I trembled. “
Neigh
.”

“And when he swishes his tail?”

“Oh,
Swish-swish
.”

“You’re a smart little girl.”

“I like animals,” I said breathlessly. “I once found a baby bird, oh, and fed him honey.”

“Does this hurt?”

“Oh no.” I leaned against him. “The big boys do this all
the time.” I moaned again. “Should I be talking to you? I’m not supposed to . . .”

We heard footsteps. Quickly I broke away, scrambling to pull up my underwear. I wagged my finger at Thomas, but his face was tired, and he only shook his head. Just as he stepped back from our embrace, just as I buttoned up my dress, Lucien came behind the shed, carrying a Space Invader ice cream. Lucien, with his father’s eyes and eyelashes and half-smile, looked first at Thomas, then at me, and back to Thomas again. The garbage smell made me feel ill.

“Lucien, you’re not supposed to eat those!” The ice cream had a bubblegum nose.

“Dad, I’m not going to swallow it.”

“It’s not good for you.”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Lucien, give it to me!”

Thomas took the ice cream from his son. He dug out the bubblegum nose with his wet index finger. Rolling the gum-ball, blue food dye stained his skin. I watched him realize that he couldn’t throw the gum in the trash, while this little boy stood watching; all the hat-throwing bravado stripped away.

“You bowled very well today, Lucien,” I said quickly.

Lucien just stared at his noseless spaceman, making a grunt.

“Thanks for your help, Mr. Marne.”

I walked away, sad for Lucien: I could hear Thomas engaging him in a conversation about his cricket form. Now his bowling had improved, his batting needed some extra attention. I reported back to Lillian Hurnell, who was standing with a group of parents. My walk may have been jaunty, full of rude intonations, because when I asked, “Is there anything
else I can do?” Lillian stared at me, then at my dress, without smiling. “Why don’t you go home, Kate? You’ve done quite enough today.”

I looked down and noticed two buttons were still undone from our embrace. “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday.”

She didn’t answer.

I walked out the gates, and felt a wave of disapproval rising within me:
Imagine fucking your own child’s teacher!
How could he do that? Even if the boy was a poor sportsman, how could he do that?
It was disgusting!
She was a young woman, a barely hatched woman, away from home for the first time. A little naive, I smiled. A little out of her depth. At the very beginning of a career to which she was possibly ill suited. Living in a shit-hole town when she could have been doing a masters in child psychology or any-other-fucking thing!

As I made my way down the Main Street I had to pass the silver car. Thomas seemed cross, and Veronica looked over, barely managing the mask of politeness she usually had perfected. Thomas was trying to persuade Lucien to take his grass-stained shoes off before getting into the backseat; the cramped backseat of his expensive car that I knew all too well. He was taking off his shoes the same slow, cross-legged way as my old lover. “Lucien, hurry up, will you?” Thomas said impatiently. He wasn’t being cruel; he was just being a father. Still, it was unattractive to watch. I’d quite liked it when Thomas disciplined me, but it was almost sickening that he did it to someone else—and so seriously. I suddenly wished Lucien and I could just leave and go somewhere safe together, away from these people.

• MURDER AT BLACK SWAN POINT •

Improvising with great aplomb.

T
ry it again, Kitty!”

Using an old beer bottle, the bushland creatures replayed a key scene. Percy Possum, Kitty’s acting partner, wrapped himself around a silver gum branch, getting into character. Percy was a renowned gossip, having lived in nearly all the locals’ roofs, but his dramatic flair made for an invigorating performance. Percy raised a paw to his brow. “Yes! Yes! I have betrayed all our vows,” cried the possum, giving the rendition his all. “I am an adulterer!”

Oh! The animals winced as Kitty picked up the bottle. Improvising with aplomb, the koala opened her vacant eyes wide. She brought great insight to Margot’s plight, capturing her rage and humiliation and—after miming the bottle strike—her horror at having bloodied her beloved husband. As the two performers took their bows, the assembled animals offered polite congratulations. But they were all thinking the same thing: why had Graeme Harvey not alerted the police to the mixed bloodstains on his bedroom and bathroom floors? He must have realized they did not belong solely to him—his wife’s blood had also been spilled.

“Being the victim of a crime’s fallout can be extremely upsetting, even leading to what’s known as post-traumatic stress disorder,” Terence Tiger now advised his friends. “Memories can become vague and disorganized; apparent falsehoods may be the result of nervous shock rather than any deliberate attempt to mislead.”

“So Dr. Harvey may have just been a little forgetful?” inquired Kitty Koala hopefully.

“Balderdash!” Wally Wombat growled. “If he had post-traumatic stress disorder, we all do!”

The animals looked at one another. Unfortunately, the years since Ellie’s death had not been kind to any of them. They’d traveled around this fair isle solving human crimes, while so many of their furry brethren, their feathered cousins, and most reptilian relatives had had foul and bloody deeds committed against them. Wally’s family had had dreadful luck with feral cats and
cars. Kingsley Kookaburra flew around and around, suffering some Lear-like delirium. That drunken wallaby, Warwick, had been shot through the eyes: for knowing too much, or for pet food. And poor Kitty, they never mentioned it, but like many of her species, she had a strain of chlamydia that had led to blindness and infertility . . . she was unable to have any little bears.

Still, it was better to look on the bright side.

“That’s a bit grim, Wally,” Terence Tiger said finally. “Frightfully grim, actually.” Waiting a moment for the tension to pass, the tiger cleared his throat and announced, “Chums! I’ve something else to show you.” With a flourish he pulled out a set of drawings, by Lucien Marne, after actual crime photographs. The bushland gang all gasped. How did the tiger always manage to sniff out such evidence? “It’s a funny thing,” Terence said in his dry way, “but when you’re extinct, people look you straight in the eye and assume they haven’t seen you.”

All the animals, including the wombat, laughed knowingly. They studied the crayon drawings of Graeme Harvey’s wounded head, while listening to Terence. “Lucien’s fine sketches illustrate one of the case’s central dilemmas. The bottle, with which Margot was supposed to have hit her husband, never turned up. The police asked Graeme repeatedly if he had any idea how it might have been disposed of. No. The crime squad searched extensively. No success.” The tiger sighed. “Some people began to wonder if Graeme’s whole story about Margot attacking him was apocryphal. Could he have acquired those cuts in another altercation? Was there something he was hiding?”

The animals turned, as if from the conversation, and through some shrubbery saw Miss Kate Byrne, walking down the Main Street. A wide-eyed young bear described to Kitty what the schoolteacher was wearing. “I’m glad she chose that floral dress,” said the older koala in her maternal way. But secretly, she felt worried. “Was the lass really so foolish?” Kitty stifled a groan. “Oh no! Did she actually believe that cracking the Siddell case would put her out of danger?”

T
HE PUB’S WALLS,
stained nicotine yellow, displayed a variety of mounted sharks’ jaws and the memorabilia of long-wrecked whaling ships. The whalers once sat in here waiting for the whales to spout, but if the seas were rough, they’d stay drinking for days. Now a row of old men clung to one side of the bar, as if, for them, the seas had been too rough for years. I sat opposite. Perhaps I had intuitively positioned myself next to the men’s toilets, although I preferred to think this was my default position: the teacher surveying her class. Men played darts. Men watched the flickering horses. Men smoked. Signals were rising from each mute drunk. I had expected to be leered at, but what I read was resentment. My presence interrupted their secret business. They could try to pretend they were alone, until nature called, then each man swung past me, indignant still, as he held himself close. Some of the fathers were amongst the drinkers. If they approached, I knew I’d breathe fire. A line had been crossed. Every molecule was now changing, and the knife was in my purse.

“How’s your day been, love?” the barmaid asked. She was a plump redhead, sunburned on the back of her neck. No one in the pub had to order his beer. The barmaid just looked out
the window, saw a patron’s truck approaching, and pulled him a glass.

“My day’s been great.”

“Take it easy?”

“Yes, yes, nice and easy.”

She walked away and I stared back into my drink. Unfortunately,
Murder at Black Swan Point
would offer no clues as to the Marnes’ plans. Each chapter ended with another unanswered question, right until the book’s end where Veronica, trying to be poignant, wrote of visiting Point Puer’s convict ruins, in search of Margot’s fate. Walking to the edge of the Suicide Cliffs, Veronica had thrown flowers into the sea, mourning a brave woman who’d been undone by her passion. “Perhaps within all of us,” Veronica confessed, “there is an island of the night, and on that island a castaway capable of deeds we’d rather not acknowledge.” Veronica’s castaway was certainly capable of being verbose. The truth of this finale was that its author had no idea what had happened—315 pages, but all she’d needed to scratch on each was
I DON’T KNOW.