Through a Camel's Eye (7 page)

TWELVE

A week of heavy rain washed Margaret Benton's body out from a bank of the Murray River. She'd been buried less than a kilometre from where she'd lived in Swan Hill.

Chris realised he'd known that she was dead; he hadn't had a moment's doubt. From Anthea's expression as she listened to the news, it seemed that she'd believed this too.

‘The body was right on the bank.'

‘What about ID?'

‘None on her. Identified from dental records.'

‘They'll send somebody down here now,' Chris said.

A river bank had disgorged a body. Chris replayed the scene in his mind, as though it was one he'd witnessed personally; not just any river, but the Murray in flood, the body spinning in the water, jostling those of sheep and luckless cattle, yet not rolling far. What if the dead woman's remains had not been caught in branches, stopped by a fallen tree? What if Margaret Benton had gone on rolling, kilometre after kilometre? What if she had never been found at all?

That was, of course, what her killer must have hoped for.

Anthea showed Chris her computer screen. On it was a photograph of a good-looking middle-aged man, with wavy dark hair and thick lips.

‘It's him.'

‘Good work.' Chris pulled up a chair. The name under the photo was in a tiny point size. Anthea zoomed in and the man's face went fuzzy.

‘Does he have a record?'

‘Stealing cars.'

‘Looks a bit old for that.'

‘Some men never grow up.'

Chris shot a glance at Anthea, but her eyes were firmly on the screen.

‘I'll print this off, will I? It's something to go round with.'

‘Good,' Chris said again. ‘Print out the convictions too. I don't suppose there's a horse float among them?'

Anthea laughed and said, ‘No such luck.'

‘Don't play silly buggers with me, Frank. Where's your trailer?'

‘You know what, Blackie? You've turned into an aggressive little shit since you acquired that lass with the pretty arse. I might have to get my solicitor to remind you of my rights.'

Chris rubbed his eyes and shook his head to clear it. ‘Go ahead, Frank. But I'll be round here every day until I get an answer, so you might as well co-operate and save yourself the trouble.'

The farmer scowled, then said gruffly, ‘My son's got it.'

‘Jim?'

‘Some of us do have families, you know.'

‘What's Jim doing with your clapped-out trailer?'

‘Moving a horse.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Well, I couldn't say for certain, not to the nearest metre.' Frank made an exaggerated show of checking his watch. ‘Somewhere between Lorne and Apollo Bay would be a rough estimate.'

‘I'll need it back. Today.'

‘Don't know about that. Mightn't be possible.'

‘Tomorrow, or I'll charge you with obstructing a police investigation.'

Chris knew Frank was laughing at him. But whether it was guilty laughter, or pleasure at having got the better of the local law enforcement, this he couldn't say. He was annoyed with himself for over-reacting.

If the grapevine had done its usual work, Chris was sure Frank Erwin knew all about the Bentons' stay at the McIntyre's van park, and what had brought it to a premature end. The whole town would know that the murdered woman had been in Queenscliff last summer; they'd be watching with curiosity to see what happened next.

Chris told himself that he could chase Jim up, go back to Frank and find out what he was driving, get the rego details. He could ring the stations at Lorne and Apollo Bay and ask them to keep a look out. There couldn't be that many horse trailers on the Ocean Road today. But he felt in his bones that it was too late.

He wasn't surprised when he picked up the phone an hour later and there was Frank on the other end, a Frank much chastened and apologetic. He was terribly sorry, but there'd been an accident. His trailer had gone over the side of a cliff, around a nasty bend.

‘You know that really bad stretch just before you get to Wye River. And it's blowing a gale down there today.'

‘So the trailer came loose. Where is it now?'

‘Over the side, like I said.' Frank sounded aggrieved. ‘And thanks for asking after Jimmy. He wasn't hurt, by the way.'

‘I'm glad to hear it.'

Chris had no authority to order any kind of salvage operation, and James Erwin would have made sure that pieces of the trailer were scattered far and wide. He began typing another report, outlining a connection between the missing camel and Margaret Benton, but stopped when he realised that he wasn't even convincing himself. He knew that the trailer would remain at the bottom of whatever cliff it had conveniently fallen over, until it was washed away by the spectacular high tides that were famous along that stretch of coastline.

He put the half-written report aside and rang to ask about the lab results on the hairs. After being put on hold for what seemed like forever, he was told they'd once belonged to a palomino pony.

When Anthea came in, flushed from her door-to-door, Chris didn't want to tell her about the debacle over the trailer, but he made himself get it over with.

Anthea listened in silence. When Chris had finished, she bit the inside of her cheek and frowned.

‘But if Frank knew he was innocent, why go to all that trouble?'

The same question had been in Chris's mind too, as he pictured shards of wood floating out to sea.

‘Frank told me the hairs weren't Riza's. He was angry when I didn't believe him.'

Anthea said, ‘Everyone's speculating about who killed Margaret Benton. You should hear the theories.'

Chris put his head in his hands and muttered between them, ‘Spare me.'

The spaghetti sauce smelt good. Once Anthea had got over her surprise at asking Chris to share it, it seemed a lucky chance, a pleasant kind of omen, that she'd bought enough ingredients for two.

Anthea poured wine, glad she'd had the foresight to put a bottle in the fridge.

‘Cheers,' she said, serving with a small show of ceremony, wondering if Chris would notice that she had two of everything - two good glasses, deep bowls for the fettuccini, salad plates, linen serviettes she'd only just unpacked.

Chris fell on his dinner and began shovelling it in.

He looked up at Anthea's quizzical expression.

‘Sorry,' he said, wiping his mouth. ‘I - it's good.'

‘I'm glad you like it. And don't be.'

They ate without speaking for a while, Anthea finding the silence restful rather than a gap needing to be filled. She reflected that Graeme would have expected her to entertain him - while she was cooking, while they were eating, and after the meal. She would have prepared jokes, amusing anecdotes about the town and its inhabitants. She would have rehearsed them, and been anxious that they should go down well. Suddenly, she missed Graeme dreadfully. It was impossible that they'd come to this lack of contact, this nothing.

Chris leant back in his chair. Anthea noticed that he'd hardly touched his wine. She refilled the carafe of water she'd put on the table and he drank some of that.

She was aware of every move Chris made, aware for the first time of the masculine weight and heft of him, the growl his chair made as he scraped it back, sounds she was sure he scarcely heard himself.

They washed up together, Anthea absorbed by a new sensitivity towards her boss as a man. She felt certain that any change in her behaviour towards him would cause them both discomfort. Not that she intended to behave differently; but signals were given and received whether or not the exchange was intentional.

Chris was an odd mixture, which Anthea hadn't come across before, of sensitivity and ignorance where women were concerned. She found herself revising her initial impression, which was that for her boss never to have married, or even to have had a long-term relationship - she suspected this was so, without really knowing - meant that there was something wrong with him. Weeks of having kept her ears open for gossip about past girlfriends had not netted her a single name.

Anthea stared intently, over the automatic movements of her fingers, at neutral or grey areas she had not previously thought it worth her while to contemplate.

She thought that Chris was too close to the townspeople, and that was why he felt inadequate and anxious now. He'd grown used to behaving like a mother hen, shepherding his flock and keeping them out of danger, when even fools knew that danger had a habit of rearing up and clobbering you, even in a boring country town.

After Chris had left, Anthea grabbed her torch, glad he hadn't overstayed his welcome. She climbed the cliff path with a greedy sense of anticipation, as though the pleasures to be gained there - salt wind in her hair, calls of the night birds - answered a need as physical as hunger. She was getting to know the path, where bulbous tree roots rose to trip a person, with their look of nocturnal animals frozen in the act.

She recalled her loneliness, now that it was diminishing, in the first few weeks of what she'd thought of as her banishment. Nothing in the night had answered it; nothing human, or made by humans, such as a café or a bar where she might have found someone to have a drink with. She shrank from going into a pub alone here, being recognised and talked about.

Of course, if she'd been in Melbourne, not wandering around asking for her ankle to be broken, then Graeme would have been there too, looking at the same lights, breathing the same air. It was the absolute contrast of night down here that got to you. Back there, even if she'd been alone, the city lights would have touched her with a human touch. Here there was nothing to answer, though it was not a wilderness she lived in, but a seaside town. She thought of the two single women she'd come across - Camilla Renfrew, Julie Beshervase. Out there, on the cliff top, the idea of walking Riza to his hiding place seemed more than plausible, the idea that Camilla might have taken him, out of love and loneliness, a distinct possibility.

Anthea had been in such a hurry to begin her walk that she hadn't remembered to leave her phone behind. It was still in her jacket pocket. She was as startled when it rang as if she'd never heard a mobile phone before.

It was Graeme. What was she doing at the weekend? If the offer was still open, could he visit? See the local sights? He fancied a boat trip. What passed for entertainment down there on the Bellarine Peninsula?

THIRTEEN

Anthea held her phone to her ear, took a deep breath and glanced across at Graeme, who did not look up from the travel section of the
Age.

‘I see,' she said. But she didn't see. How she could have been so stupid as not to tell Chris that Graeme was coming down? She couldn't tell him now, with Graeme sitting opposite her, waiting for her to get rid of whoever was interrupting their breakfast.

Julie's waiting for you at the station
was not a request: it was an instruction; and from the way Chris spoke, he wasn't sorry for ruining her Saturday. But she'd never given him any cause for thinking this particular Saturday might be open to ruin.

Still not looking up, Graeme said in a mild voice, prepared to be mollified, ‘Got it sorted then?'

‘I have to go in to work.'

Graeme raised his dark blue eyes with an expression which asked what kind of emergency could possibly justify leaving him alone. Instead of replying immediately, he took his time to fold the paper, then pressed the long fingers of his right hand to his lips. Anthea imagined holding them. She took a gulp of air.

‘An old lady's had an accident. She's broken her leg. That was Constable - that was Chris - ringing from the hospital. I'm sorry. I'll be as quick as I can.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

Graeme could keep her there explaining for ten minutes. But the explanation would mean nothing to him, and would end in acrimony.

‘Take the spare key.' Anthea was suddenly all energy, rummaging in a kitchen drawer. ‘Go for a walk. Just across the road, there's a path that winds along the cliff.'

She put the key in front of him, fearing what she would see if she raised her eyes. But then she did raise them. Graeme was smiling, it did not seem unkindly.

‘Hurry back,' he said.

Anthea fumbled with the car door and then the ignition. One of the traitorous thoughts that followed her along the narrow road was, why did Graeme pick this weekend, and why at such short notice? Perhaps his other plans had gone awry. She recalled his smile, pressed it to her eyelids. How ridiculous to assume he was incapable of amusing himself without her for an hour or two, or that she could be blamed for failing to amuse him. She told herself not to be so pessimistic.

When Anthea pulled up in front of the station, Julie's bike was outside, but there was no sign of Julie herself. Anthea inserted her key in the lock. She listened to her even footfalls, the creaking of the wooden floor, noticed the way Saturday morning light shone through the closed slats of Venetian blinds, the small solitary warmth that had collected behind them. She wondered how many police stations around the country were like this at the weekends - too small, too unimportant to be staffed.

The phone startled her, then stopped ringing as she moved to answer it. Another sound, one she couldn't immediately identify, was coming from the back. After checking to make sure she'd locked the front door behind her, Anthea walked at a normal pace along the corridor. Both office doors were shut and she did not stop to look into them. She opened the back door, but did not immediately step out onto the veranda. Instead, she let her eyes graze the backyard. Noticing a movement in the grass, right down near the fence, she thought of the neighbour's cat, who spent long hours following the sun around, and sometimes left offerings of dismembered creatures on the steps. But the movements were too large for a cat.

‘Julie?' she called.

There was no answer, but the movements in the grass stopped. Anthea called again. Julie's head emerged from the green tangle, against grey-brown slats of fence. Anthea had the illusion that the head was somehow growing out between them. It wasn't until she had helped Julie inside, and made her strong, sweet tea, sitting close to her while she drank it, that the illusion disappeared, or that either of them spoke.

Julie hunched forward, then looked up at Anthea. Grimy streaks on either side of her mouth were dirt mixed with saliva. Broken capillaries in her cheeks were those of a much older woman.

Anthea put her arm around Julie's shoulders, willing herself to stay calm, and to find the means to calm Julie down as well.

Julie had found Camilla Renfrew on the track to Riza's paddock, or claimed she had.

‘Had Mrs Renfrew been attacked?' Anthea wished she'd asked Chris, but her mind had not been on Camilla and what had happened to her.

Julie shrugged as if to say, are you accusing me? But it was an exhausted shrug, as though she had no energy left for anger or self-defence.

She'd gone for a walk to watch the sunrise and had found Camilla on the path. Camilla had been conscious, but disoriented.

‘I didn't expect her to speak. I mean, I know she can't, but it seemed like she couldn't hear me either. And she was so cold! I rang here. I had the number in my phone. I got a machine, but it had Constable Blackie's number. When he got there, Camilla tried to talk, but nothing came out. The ambulance guys carried a stretcher up the path. If she wasn't crazy before, she sure as hell is now.'

‘The pain - '

‘Yeah, well, like, if it was you or me - can you imagine lying there all night?'

A familiar stubbornness came back into Julie's face. ‘What if she's got Riza hidden somewhere? And now she's in hospital. She won't tell anybody where he is. He'll die of thirst! He'll starve to death!'

‘What were you doing on the path so early?'

‘I told you! I wanted to see the sunrise. There's no law against it, is there? I couldn't sleep, so I got up early.'

Anthea thought of Graeme and wondered where he was. She made herself focus on Julie's sunken features, on the smell, insinuating itself into her nostrils, of human flesh that had not been washed for days.

‘She's dead!' Julie cried. ‘That woman I saw.
The river sicked her up!'

Anthea reached for Julie's hand. ‘It'll be okay. Calm down. Show me where you found Camilla Renfrew.'

The corner where Camilla had fallen was marked by broken twigs and churned up sand. Rocks and a huge tree root made the path much narrower. There was something foolishly wilful about venturing alone there in the dark. Anthea recalled her own night wanderings and stopped herself from checking her watch.

Graeme hadn't rung or sent a text.

Julie stopped on the other side of the tree root, where the path curved sharply to the left.

Anthea thought about the young woman's temptation, out there on the track at dawn - Julie, who hated Camilla, with Camilla in her power. Julie was disturbed, mentally and emotionally, and there was only her word for the fact that she'd found Camilla lying injured. Presumably, when Camilla had recovered sufficiently, she would provide her own account of what had happened, in writing.

At every gateway - country, town, and city - Anthea could imagine, if she wished, a woman desperate to escape.

The flat was empty. Anthea's breath caught as she went from room to room. She picked up the spare key from the kitchen bench, then began looking for a note. She found it pinned to her pillow, a cruel gesture she would not have believed Graeme capable of, and that made her breathing so strained she had to sit down before she could read it. She didn't want to sit on the bed, whose covers had been pulled up without it being properly made.

‘Hey Ant,' the note began - Graeme's nickname for her in childishly carefree days. ‘Couldn't wait around I'm afraid. Call you later in the week.' He'd simply signed it ‘G'.

Anthea wanted to get into her car and follow him. It was as though the notion of compulsion had been introduced into the human repertoire for just such an event, and, with this leap into the future, she thought that perhaps she would never again owe allegiance to restraint. She imagined chasing Graeme up the highway in a police car, lights and siren daring other motorists to get in the way. She pictured herself arriving at his house. There wouldn't be much time lag because of his laid-back approach to treachery, her unnatural speed.

She was armed. She would confront him. The scene had such elemental power and rightness that the actions she willed herself towards left no room for doubt.

Gradually, Anthea's vision cleared. She told herself she could not spend the rest of the day alone in her flat. The cliff walk did not appeal because she'd suggested it to Graeme. Perhaps he'd taken her up on her suggestion. What if the walk that she'd begun to cherish had given a sufficient edge to Graeme's boredom with her, sufficient, that is, for him to scribble off that note and leave?

Characteristically, the break had not been expressed in clear terms. He should just have said ‘Goodbye.'

Anthea's car followed the by now familiar turns and ended up back at the station. Graeme's betrayal felt like a stone in her stomach, replacing the food she'd gone without, taking up too much space. She felt sure that Chris, when he walked in, must see this.

But Chris was full of the accident, the hospital, Camilla's son Simon, who'd reacted with an irritation he hadn't bothered to conceal to the news that his mother had broken her leg.

‘A piece of work,' Chris called him, putting on a plummy voice. ‘My mother shouldn't be living on her own. I've been trying to get her into a retirement home for years.'

Anthea said, ‘Does he want her house?'

‘The money from it, possibly. I can't see a man like that burying himself down here.' Chris glanced at his assistant quickly, then away. He thought that she was looking pale and tired. ‘Of course, if he was rich enough he could keep it as a weekender, but I got the sense that Camilla's son has a real aversion to Queenscliff.'

Anthea was careful not to catch her boss's eye. She made a pot of tea and he accepted a mug gratefully.

‘Oh, that's the other thing. Simon took his mother to a specialist in Melbourne. Her lack of speech - it's a medical mystery apparently.'

‘Could it be psychological? Perhaps she doesn't want to talk.'

‘It's possible. But when you see her struggling for words - well, what do you think?'

Anthea took a few moments to answer. ‘I think Camilla wants to speak, but I don't think she wants to be bullied into it.'

Chris nodded, frowning, perhaps, at the recollection of a greedy son.

Anthea related what Julie had told her about finding Camilla on the path.

Chris listened, looking thoughtful. ‘Are you okay?' he asked.

‘Yes,' said Anthea, surprised that her voice sounded normal. ‘Hungry. I missed lunch.'

Chris did not ask what her plans had been for the day, and she felt relieved, certain that he'd recognise a lie.

Anthea used the toilet, washed her hands and face, then stood leaning against the sink in the station's small kitchen. The mug Julie had used was sitting on the draining board, but it seemed days, rather than hours, since she'd been there.

She stood staring, bug-eyed, at the crockery. When she came back to the present, it was with the relatively harmless observation that her boss had never cultivated charm. But he was sensitive enough not to want to give offence, and to try and guess, in advance, what might cause it. Up until now, he'd never asked her a personal question.

In Graeme, charm had replaced other qualities, like a coloniser squashing previous inhabitants.

‘It's too late for lunch and too early for dinner.'

Anthea turned around and smiled.

‘There should be an equivalent of brunch,' she said. ‘A mid-afternoon meal that's more substantial than tea and cakes.'

‘Right,' Chris said, and then, ‘That Chinese along the Geelong Road's open all day.' He smiled back, patting his pockets. ‘After you.'