Peter Corris - The Other Side of Sorrow

His driver’s licence had expired a year ago and, as I’d already learned, he was being proceeded against for failure to pay parking fines and for driving an unroadworthy vehicle. He had drawn unemployment benefits periodically but was not currently doing so. I obtained an address for his surviving parent, his mother, in Petersham and details of three bank accounts, all overdrawn. It was difficult to find much on the credit side of Damien’s ledger.

Megan Sarah French had been born in Bathurst at St Margaret’s Hospital twenty-three years ago. Her birth date was given as one day after the date Cyn claimed to have had her child. Her adoptive parents were Rex and Dora French of Katoomba. Megan Sarah French had attended the St Josephine Convent in Katoomba. She was a prefect, leader of the debating team and captain of the netball squad that won the country division championship in her final year. She scored 90.5 in the HSC and matriculated at the University of New South Wales. She’d dropped out of a degree course in industrial relations after two years.

I jotted the information down from the phone calls and arranged the faxes in order as they came in. I drank the whole of a pot of strong coffee and made another as things began to sink in. The confirmation of Cyn’s story seemed to be staring me in the face and I found it hard to adjust to. I’d been hoping, or at least half-hoping, for something to blow the whole idea out of the water, but all I was getting were blocks building towards the same conclusion.

The data continued to flow. Megan Sarah had enrolled in the same TAFE Environmental Studies course as Talbot and had dropped out at the same time. Connection. She’d drawn unemployment benefits at various times and signed on for several re-training programs without completing them. Not good. A couple of credit cards had been withdrawn for failure to meet payments. No prosecutions. She held a driver’s licence but no vehicle was registered in her name. She had never lost any points on her licence, and there was nothing outstanding. No criminal convictions.

It was ambiguous stuff to convey to Cyn and I resolved to edit it. I got the suit wet walking in the rain to the Post Office to consult the Blue Mountains telephone directory. There were three entries for French and one with the initial R. Back in the office, with the suit jacket on a hanger, I rang the most likely number and drew a blank – R was for Robert and he had no knowledge of a Rex. Ditto with the next. The third French was Rex’s brother, Frank, and he was happy to talk to me when I told him I was a private detective.

‘Is the prick in trouble?’ he said.

‘No, I want to talk to him about his daughter, Megan. She’s… ah, missing.’

‘That poor kid.’

This was the second time that expression had been used. “Why d’you say that, Mr French?’

‘Rex and Dora are religious fanatics. First it was Catholicism, strict as buggery. Megan was supposed to be a nun. They tried to beat God into her, made her life a misery and she was a super kid. When she kicked over the traces, wanted to go to university and that, they went nuts.’

‘What did they do to her?’

‘Kicked her out. Then they sold everything they had and joined a bloody cult up here. They get around praying and scratching in the dirt.’

‘I’d like to talk to them.’

‘You’ll have to come up then. There’s no phone out there.’

He gave me directions to a five-hectare property near Mount Wilson operated by the Society for Harmony and Tranquility.

I thanked him. ‘Do you think they’d be in touch with Megan?’

‘Rex? No way. Dora might be. She’s under his thumb but she not quite as crazy as he is. Tell him Frank sent you. That’ll really get up his nose.’

It wasn’t a day for the mountains. Sydney was cool and wet, the mountains were likely to be cooler and possibly wetter. I grabbed a parka I keep in the office and headed west. Mentally, I picked through the information I’d acquired about Megan and Talbot. It could be structured not to sound too bad – a ‘crazy mixed-up kids’ gloss could be put on it. But it could be a lot worse in reality, with the drugs and Talbot’s violence factored in. I tried to treat it like any missing persons case – concerned parent, worrying features, bad associations – but the personal aspect kept cutting in, confusing me and making me unsure of my assessments.

The country around Mount Wilson looked bleak in the pale winter light. After a long, hot summer there hadn’t been much rain until recently and the land was parched-looking and damply yellow. Frank French’s directions were good and I located the property easily. It was at the end of a long dirt road and the word that sprang to mind to describe it was neglect. The fences were in poor repair, broken down in spots by the press of branches, sagging elsewhere from wood rot. The driveway to the main building had once been covered with gravel but now the rocky ground was showing through. The rambling main building, constructed from what looked like rough, pit-sawn local timber, immediately struck me as odd. It was huddled down amid trees and shrubs in a hollow as if deliberately trying to avoid the view to the west. If it had been located just a few metres in that direction on higher ground it would have commanded a magnificent outlook over paddocks to forest and far ranges.

The garden beds and lawn flanking the driveway were scruffy. An old Land Rover was parked on a patch of remaining gravel to the left near a rusting pre-fab shed. I stopped dead in front of the building, got out and looked around. No telephone lines, no electricity cables, no TV antenna. Isolation. The right context for dogma and obedience. The place depressed me already.

I suppose I expected white robes and sandals, but the man who met me at the top of the front steps wore a business suit and a business-like expression.

‘Welcome to Harmony and Tranquility,’ he said. ‘How may I help you?’

He was middle-aged, plump, balding, normal-looking, so I behaved normally by showing him my PEA licence and telling him that I wanted to talk to Rex and Dora French on a family matter. I’d put the parka on in the car to keep myself dry on the dash to the building. I took it off and revealed myself in suit and tie. No gun bulge. No knuckle-duster.

‘I believe they’re both meditating. Nothing distressing I hope?’

I made a non-committal gesture which he didn’t like and he liked it still less when I asked him who he was.

‘Pastor John,’ he said. ‘The leader of this community. I’ll make enquiries about Brother Rex and Sister Dora. If you’ll just wait inside?’

He ushered me up the steps and through the door into a room on the left. I had time to glimpse a faded carpet in the hallway, a lack of light, and to smell a musty odour that confirmed my impression of neglect. The room I stood in was bare apart from an old set of church pews arranged around three sides. The window was small and the panes were dusty, inside and out.

After a few minutes a woman came into the room. She was fiftyish, small and tired-looking. Her grey hair was wispy and the cardigan she wore over a woollen dress was ill-buttoned. No make-up, thick stockings, flat-heeled shoes. She stopped one step into the room and looked at me as if I was going to bite her.

‘Yes?’

‘Mrs French?’

‘Yes.’

I went into a quick explanation, fearing that Rex couldn’t be far away. At the mention of Megan’s name she sparked up.

‘Oh, oh,’ she said. ‘It’s been so long. How is she?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs French. I’m trying to find her. You love her?’

‘Oh, yes. Megan is wonderful. The best thing in my life. But Rex…’